


L'Empire de la Mort

by nuitdemesreves (mesohorany)



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood moon, Holy shit there’s an actual plot?, I have no idea what I'm doing but I'm just running with it, M/M, Probable bloodplay in the future, This could get really dark really fast, catacombs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-06-17 12:03:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15460950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mesohorany/pseuds/nuitdemesreves
Summary: Armie is a hunter; an observer of all things supernatural. When he finds out the Parisian Catacombs are opening their Airbnb on the night of the blood moon to a select group of brave partygoers, he's all in. Catacombs + blood moon = great plan, right? Riiiiiight.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Alright look y'all. This ain't no Twilight.
> 
> I've been tossing around Vampire!Timmy for a long, long time, and tonight is the blood moon - perfect time to bring this idea to the light. I'm gonna be honest, I wrote this with very little research (although I did study a map of the Catacombs and surrounding areas) so it might be total crap, but god Timmy as an ancient, too-wise vampire in that body of his DOES THINGS TO ME. You know? I anticipate that this could veer in quite a dark direction, with mild to moderate bloodplay involved. I have no idea what I'm doing here but this is speaking to me, so...Anne Rice, don't let me down?
> 
> I would recommend listening to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hufzuj5weo) more or less on repeat while reading.

The day of the blood moon, the wind whips and howls and screams, announcing the onslaught of rain long before it descends upon the city. From his flat on Daguerre Armie watches the grim sky with eyes that reflect gray, discouraged, chewing his fingernails in agitation. He’s been planning for months to spend this night in Paris, for one reason and one alone: to be near the Catacombs when the blood moon rises. He will be one very unhappy soul if a little blustery storm ruins his viewing plans.

Catacombs + blood moon = great plan. Right? Right. 

At any rate he pays no mind to hazard; he’s a hunter, his life is to find, discover, learn. _Understand_. He doesn’t fear things that go bump in the night; he _invites_ them, has no qualms jumping into metaphorical lion’s dens. When he’d heard a few months back that the Airbnb located in the midst of the Parisian Catacombs was opening its doors for a select group of brave (read: wealthy) partygoers on the night of the pending blood moon, he’d booked his spot immediately, paying no mind to cost. Experience, he always reasons, is superior to anything material.

Tonight he will dwell among bones.

*

The day drags. The sky darkens, lightens, ceases, downpours. Armie wanders the nearby streets in a light rain jacket, stops at a tiny café for hot coffee, sips broodingly as he passes gaudy shops and American fast food chains, looking garishly out of place in the European streets. Normally he loves rain; today his affection is subdued. Half an hour of moongazing, he reasons, shouldn’t be too difficult a request for the heavens to fulfill.

By 8:45 pm, the sky has swept itself mostly clear of damp, but enough cloud remains to paint its canvas with eerie atmosphere. Armie is due at the catacombs by 9:30. He sheathes himself in black and gray, switches from caffeine to alcohol. Worries at his ragged left thumbnail, waits on the balcony with his toes tapping and his stomach roiling in anticipation. In his experience, the blood moon draws witches, vampires, man-wolves. In his experience, the preternatural world alights for its splendor. 

Not for the first time, he wonders what company he will keep tonight, when he dwells among those bones.

*

For a time he stands outside the entrance to his single-night tomb, revering the scarlet sphere adorning the ink dome above his head. Several rather gothic-looking individuals slip past him while he observes, calculating the positioning of Mars, senses honed sharp as a scythe. While Armie has a penchant for disregarding danger, he has an uncanny ability to scent it before it comes; when it hovers like noxious gas in the air before striking.

The moon is such a violent burgundy bright it could light the world like a devil sun.

Armie takes a deep breath, assesses. Normally he might enter a situation like the one that currently faces him with blessed crosses and salt guns and holy water, but tonight he has nothing on him but an age-softened leather jacket and a layer of trust. If Nosferatu awaits, let him. He asked for this. 

Through the entrance he finds a woman garbed in Elvira black, eyeliner spiky as a stiletto heel, mouth darker than three AM. She curves her lips at him, holds out a coffin-nailed hand so shockingly white as to be nearly translucent, clears her throat.

“ _Réservation_?”

Armie produces the envelope containing the necessary papers, places it in her phantom hand. She inspects them briefly, looks up at him, flashes that closed-mouth smile at him again. He wonders if she dresses like this all the time, or if the Catacombs hired her for tonight alone, their little enchantress serving as a barrier between the world of the living and the land of the dead.

“ _Merci_ ,” she says. “ _Suivez-moi._ ”

So Armie follows.

He expects twisting cobblestone passages illuminated by flickering flame, walls lined with volumes of bones. He is not disappointed. To his left, skulls stack one atop the other from floor to low ceiling; to his right, scapulae and clavicles and pelvic bones crisscross, forming a macabre sort of wall. Armie can’t stop himself grinning; the devil in him is in heaven (hell?).

In total silence they walk for a good quarter mile into the mass tomb. Armie is just wondering what will happen if others arrive behind him in the absence of his ghoulish hostess when they reach a door, inlaid with – you guessed it – bones. Faint noise emanates from behind it – music, voices. Chanting?

The Elvira woman pushes the door open, gestures him inside. Her eyes are full black when she says, rustily,

“ _Au revoir_.”

Despite his courageous nature Armie’s hackles raise, unbidden. He nods once, steps through the entryway without observation, watches her sashay confidently back down the cadaverous corridor. Then, digging his teeth fiercely into his wrecked thumbnail, he turns and shuts himself in a tomb.

For a moment he just watches, listens, smells. What he sees:

Candelabras? Check. Pebbled stone floors? Check. Inhabitants swathed in one thousand shades of darkness? Check. Bones?

Triple check.

What he hears:

Low melodic voices, multiple languages. In the background, Gregorian chant playing at a volume high enough to be heard, low enough to be sinister. Scuffling of feet, rustling of clothing. Glasses clinking lyrically against ice.

What he smells:

Damp. Earth. Clove cigarettes ( _danger_ ).

Armie shakes it off.

A stone pillar in the center of the room boasts two massive marble plaques, one suspended on the side facing the door, the other perched on the side fronting the left-hand wall, both elegantly inscribed. Armie doesn’t have to move closer to know their words:

_Pensez la matin que vous n’irez peut-être pas jusques au soir et au soir que vous n’irez peut-être pas jusques au matin._  (Think in the morning that you will not arrive to the evening and in the evening that you will not arrive to the morning.)

And, 

_Si vous avez vu quelque fois mourir une homme, considerez toujours que le mêmes sort vous attend._ (If you have seen a man die a few times, always remember that the same fate awaits you.)

“ _Memento mori_ ,” rumbles Armie under his breath on a bleak grin, and when he diverts his gaze from the pillar his eyes snag the invasive, utterly indiscreet stare of a young man lounging luxuriantly against the wall of bones directly before him. 

The boy is positively magnificent; there is no other terminology to describe him but _inhuman_. He is synchronously shadow and luminosity; raven curls toppling here and there about his lovely alabaster forehead, the impeccable lines and flawless scaffolding of his face so severe his features might have been wrought from marble. He is wearing an insouciantly unbuttoned dark blazer and coal-colored jeans that embrace his branch-thin body like a second skin and Armie can decrypt in his insolent eyes that he understands exactly how he looks against that grisly backdrop of human framework. As Armie watches him he raises a skinny pale hand to his lips, sucks hard on his cigarette, lets it drop as he puffs smoke enticingly between his bloodless plump lips. Raises his top lip slightly in a smirk. 

His white wolf teeth glint; sharp, sharp, sharp, and Armie understands instantly. This boy is the source of the sick-sweet aroma of clove cigarettes.

This boy is the source of the danger.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oof. It's been forever since I've updated and I wrote this mostly in the notes section of my phone while on vacation so I apologize in advance for any typos! But it's SPOOPY season and it was time to rev this up again. Hope you enjoy :)

For half a second, Armie’s blood stops. He wonders if the knife-toothed boy can scent him, sense the movement of his winding twisting bloodstream like he himself can feel the darkness radiating like chimney smoke from the boy’s skin. In his experience, vampires are the most intelligent of all preternatural beings, and they only collect wisdom with age, top-class wine gaining flavor and richness as the years pass. It’s impossible to tell if the creature before him is seventeen or seven hundred; it’s impossible to tell if he’s watching Armie with hunger or bloodlust.

Armie isn’t sure there’s a significant difference.

Beside him, a voice: “Business or pleasure?”

Armie blinks, looks away from the ensnaring enchanting gaze of the otherworldly boy. “Sorry?”

“Are you here,” drawls the syrupy southern accent slowly, “for business or pleasure?”

The voice belongs to a small middle-aged man wearing a dark gray sweater and a sharp look in his glinty eyes. Armie can tell immediately from his demeanor and his slightly smoky smell that he’s a hunter, too, and he’s armed, on guard. Probably for good reason, Armie thinks; it is very likely that his watcher boy is not the only supernatural being present tonight. 

“Mostly business,” says Armie cautiously. “A little pleasure.”

“I see.” The man is looking around constantly, hyperaware, only half focused on Armie’s face. “I think it’s mostly vamps and their playthings here. A few innocents. I believe there’s a shapeshifter in the corner over there.” 

Innocents: Armie quirks his mouth at the word. People who don’t know that another world parallel to the human universe exists: people who are blissfully blind. He was one of those once. Out loud he says,

“Am I that obvious?”

“Let’s see,” says the man, amused. “You’re blonde, tan, and you clearly work out: definitely human. You’re wearing silver around your neck and three of your fingers and you look like you could be concealing a weapon somewhere in all that leather of yours: you’re cautious. No bite marks: you’re not a blood whore. Which leads me to believe...you’re one of us.” 

“So why are you here?”

“Same as you.” The man smiles. “I like to observe. I’m Joe.”

“Armie.” Armie shakes the bejeweled hand that is proffered, darts his eyes back to the sultry wicked boy leaning against the wall. He’s still watching Armie with an astonishing lack of chagrin; it’s unnerving, but Armie can feel the siren of the vamp in the air between them, warm blood song. Even he with his years of practice and multiple encounters with this variation of the undead is not immune to the call.

“Armie,” says Joe, “short for Armand? Parents big Anne Rice fans?” 

“Mom read her all the time,” says Armie, looking back to Joe with his easy grin. “Then again, she was also a hunter, so.”

“Makes sense.” Joe sips from his cup, a crow-black goblet filled with strong scarlet liquid. Armie catches a whiff of tomatoes and thinks, _Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary._ “Well, Armand. I think you have an admirer.”

Armie gives a mirthless grin, but his stomach is on edge and he can’t pinpoint if it’s interest or anxiety. “Skinny dark boy? I think he knows what I am.”

“He knows what you are, all right,” says Joe, smirking over the rim of his goblet. “But he knows what I am, too, and he’s not looking at _me_ like that.”

Armie has to laugh; this man has just met him and he’s bold as the sun, absolutely unabashed, a trait most likely gleaned from years of surviving the perpetual hunt. Killer instinct tends to bleed into every aspect of personality; he feels his own right now, fight-or-flight adrenaline screaming in his blood, his bones, his stomach. It’s at war with the constant underlying hum of the dangerous boy’s preternatural call.

“You think he’s fresh or you think he’s been around for a while?”

“Oh he’s not fresh,” says Joe. His eyes are constantly scanning the room, all vigilance, but he’s good at disguising it as mild, harmless curiosity. “But I couldn’t tell you how long ago he was turned. You could talk to him, find out.” 

Armie sighs. They’re stuck in their little tomb all night; once the last guest enters there’s no getting out until sunrise - half an hour before for the vamps to make their getaway - but he’s fucked if he’s going to answer that whining little vibration in the air between them. He doesn’t talk to vamps unless he needs information from one about a missing person, and even then it’s usually with them bound hard by torturous silver chains, snarling in powerless hunger as Armie blood-baits them for answers, cruel with his golden eyes and furious bitten mouth. Because he can be cruel, oh yes, when he wants to be.

“He’ll come to me,” says Armie confidently, “if he wants. I’m not here to get involved.”

“Ah, a voyeur,” says Joe, good-natured. “Alas, I, too, am only here to observe. I’m usually the violent kind, but I’m trying to avoid getting banned from one of my favorite places in the world, so the whole capture-torture routine isn’t in the cards for me tonight.” 

Armie grins. “Wise. Where’d you get that drink?”

“There’s a bar – ” Joe points to his left “ – just there. Free of charge. I think they cut you off after a certain number per hour, though, so watch out.”

“Noted.” Armie nods, his eyes following the direction of Joe’s finger, attention split between the thought of alcohol bliss blanking out his nerves and the arresting, commanding, sideline attention of his nameless watcher. “I’m gonna go test that limit. I’ll see you around.”

Joe raises his glass, smiles. “I’ll be here.”

Armie makes his way carefully through the thickening crowd, deep dark chanting in the background growing marginally louder to cover the purr of live voices, chill air lit only with billowy volatile candle flame. When he reaches the bar, a small stone slab raised up in the back left corner, he seats himself to one side, positioned so he can keep one curious eye on the proceedings around him. The underlying siren tone has temporarily ceased; Armie looks around and is unsurprised to discover that the boy whose presence screams peril has disappeared. 

The bartender is a bald man with a thick Manchester accent, crass mannerisms and snaggletooth contrasted with his impeccable gray suit. By force of habit Armie orders Angel’s Envy neat, something that allows him to nurse and stay relatively clearheaded while enjoying a minuscule descent into relaxation. Something to ease his seized-up shoulders out of the constant tension that accompanies the territory of his occupation. For just a moment he turns away from the crowd, accepts his drink from the bartender, and in the half second it takes for his fingers to close around the goblet - quite similar to the one Joe had been nursing - he feels the air around him change. In his blood the previously silenced song intensifies thousandfold and before he even turns his head he knows who will be standing before him.

Up close the branch-thin boy is the most exquisite creature, doll-smooth skin, confident lidded multichromatic eyes, thin bloodless lips and dark voluminous lashes for which beauty pageant contestants would have sold their souls. Armie is used to vampires and their stupefying effect on humans but this one is of another species entirely; he is made from Grecian marble, carved, devastating, perfectly unruly waves of raven hair and flawless charm-school elegance. This one clearly holds the clout to knock down multitudes with a look, commence wars with a word. Armie had been right to immediately conclude danger.

For a moment neither of them says a word, only looks, taking measures. The vampire is smiling slightly, surely aware of his preternatural effect, the ages of awe that have been directed his way making him cocksure. Armie keeps his gaze steady and takes a sip of his drink and finally his visitor opens his thin pretty mouth.

“Don’t do that, _chausseur_.” Hunter. “You’re spoiling your perfect blood for me.”

Of course his voice is the lowest, most hypnotic thing; slow lullaby for those who would let him take his pleasure from their veins. Armie arcs one dirty-blonde brow, amused by the vampire’s arrogance. He knows who Armie is, what he does, and still he speaks like he’s perfectly assured that he’ll be invited to partake of Armie’s life force.

“You call me a hunter,” he says, taking another swallow of bourbon, taunt in his eyes. The vampire watches his throat move, face impassive, but the song in Armie’s blood shrieks loud like a violin during the instant it takes the alcohol to move down his esophagus and he knows he has a weapon. “And yet you assume I’ll let you drink from me. Isn’t that a little presumptuous?”

The vampire tilts his dark head, smirks without showing his teeth. “You’d be surprised. Even hunters can be tamed if you give them what they want.” His accent is American English with an undercurrent of heavily ingrained French and Armie digests this clue with the thought that he’s been in the business of drinking blood for some time now. The dark boy leans forward, licks up over his top lip. “What is it that you want?”

Armie levels his gaze at him once more, smiles with his eyes, circles his forefinger around the rim of his glass.

“Maybe I want to pollute my blood in peace. You consider that at all?”

The dangerous boy laughs through his long straight nose; he’s going for indulgent but Armie is surprised to realize there’s real amusement in his voice. “Peace,” he says. “For you.”

“That’s right.” Armie’s eyes don’t waver, all calm. His blood is howling.

The vampire walks leisurely on those colt-thin legs around to the stool beside Armie, perches his whipcord frame atop it, leans on an elbow while managing to stack his spine in perfect nonchalance. Deliberate disregard of armie’s wishes for solitude. “Tell me your name, hunter.”

Armie is smirking for the disobedience; he would have done the exact same thing, he likes to follow his own rulebook. “I think you owe me yours. Since you’re the one bothering me.” He leans in, stares his companion directly in those jewel eyes. “Vampire.”

A beat. Then the boy smiles, a real smile, the bluntness of his two front teeth a direct contrast to the blade edges of his wolf teeth. Mutual acknowledgement always clears the air. “All right, I’ll play. My name is Timothée.” He crinkles his perfect nose, mild distaste, and his face transforms for half a second. “But for the love of god please don’t pronounce it that way. French pronunciations in my day were relentlessly pretentious.”

Despite himself Armie laughs, a startled little chortle in the back of his throat. “Back in your day, huh?”

“Yes. But it’s your turn to answer, not ask.” Timothée’s eyes are on Armie’s mouth at the rim of his goblet. “What’s your name?” 

Armie considers him. “You’re going to laugh.”

“Try me.”

“It’s Armand,” says Armie, pulling slowly from his goblet. “Armie for short.”

And to his surprise Timothée does laugh, high sharp melodic thing cut off when he clears his throat. “My god. A hunter named Armand. The irony.”

“Indeed.” Armie can’t believe he’s still indulging this conversation. “My mother was that rare combination of hunter and Anne Rice fan.”

“Yes, that’s surprising.” Timothée’s fingers stroke at his chin, thumb and index meeting in the middle. A moon-shaped emerald glints from his ring finger and Armie can’t help but smirk for his showmanship; he knows how to play up his status. “I would think a hunter would scoff at the inconsistencies.”

“Eh. My mother had a playful side.” 

“You speak about her in the past tense.”

“She passed when I was a teenager,” says Armie. He’s spoken of this fact so many times that he’s since learned to control the involuntary twitch that tries to occur in his jaw muscle.

“That’s horrific,” says Timothée, and Armie can tell that he means it. Vampires with empathy are few and far between, but they do exist. “It wasn’t one of mine, was it? Our young can be terribly volatile.”

Armie stirs his drink with his little red straw. “No. No, it wasn’t one of yours.”

“Man-wolf?” 

“Skinwalker, actually.” Armie smiles for the mocking terminology, withdraws the straw, sucks liquid from the end. The current discussion combined with the heightened whine of his blood-melody combine to make it impossible for him to merely nurse his beverage, but he figures the more alcoholic his blood, the less appealing he is to the surrounding undead population. “So. Back in your day?”

“I was born in Nice in the mid eighteen hundreds,” says Timothée casually, as though discussing the drink menu. “My father decided to honor my grandfather by gifting me with his name. My sister got off easily, she was called Pauline, lucky bitch.”

Armie chuckles. In spite of who they are he can recognize appealing personality when he encounters it. “You’re good at this.”

“I’m surprised you’re letting me be. Armand.” Timothée drawls his name with emphasis, returns Armie’s earlier wink. “You feel it, don’t you?”

Armie steels himself. “Feel what?”

“Please. You’re no simpleton.” Timothée bites at his ring and the jewel glints like a moonray against the white of his katana-edged teeth. “Your blood, hunter. It screams to me like an eagle calls her young. I’ve been turned for far too long to know that it’s not possible for you to not sense my need.”

He’s beautiful in his frankness and Armie can’t act like he’s not affected by his loveliness but he downplays as much as he can because he’s fucked if he can’t save face in front of a vamp, even one so perfectly charming as this. “Yes,” he says slowly, “i feel it. It’s very strong with you.”

“I thought so.” Timothée’s eyes are massive moons, unblinking. “Tell me why, hunter. You know.”

“I’m your preferred blood type,” says Armie, and there’s not a little smugness in his voice, the slight upward pull of his eyebrow. “Drinking from me would make you feel the highest of highs, the most alive you can be since you were turned. You could feed from me for two minutes and be revitalized for a week." 

Timothée’s pale lip curls back as Armie speaks; his fangs are extending slightly and Armie knows he is hungry in every sense of the word. “Very good,” he breathes. “Tell me. Do you know what you are?”

Armie grins; he’s never been told his blood type, he hasn’t given blood since before he became a hunter, became aware of the parallel world that existed alongside his own. Too many blood donation industries are in league with the undead and he’s never felt like contributing to their cause. “I’ve never asked.”

“Mm.” Timothée is watching the movement of Armie’s throat again. “You continue to be ironic. I’ll tell you, shall I? You’re AB negative. One of the most rare blood types of all. And that, lucky me, just happens to be the type that brings me most to life.”

“Mm,” returns Armie with interest, mouth quirking up at the side, comma of amusement. “That’s unlucky.”

“It’s not so bad,” says Timothée, shrugging one angular shoulder. “I don’t need AB negative to feel well; other blood works just fine for optimal health But I’ve been a vampire for nearly two hundred years and you’re only the fifth human I’ve encountered who is in possession of my own personal brand of heroin.”

Armie finishes his drink, signals the bartender for another. Around them the intensity of the music has increased and the room is thrumming filled to capacity and it’s past time to escape. Here they will dwell for the night, encased in the barest of human framework and candle flame, and Armie is talking to a vampire like he’s never talked to one before.

The blood moon creates strange circumstances.

“Your own personal brand of heroin.” Armie takes the fresh bourbon proffered by the bartender, nods. His pulse is roaring, fueled by Timothée’s need and the music, which has switched abruptly from satanic cult chant to sultry French witch house. “Very Twilight. Don’t you think?”

Timothée laughs, but it’s strained; he’s still working at the ring glimmering around his finger. “Not at all. Surely you know how the bond works between a willing donor and his or her vampire.”

Armie is enjoying this; his cruel side is showing through, gold through rust. “I’ve never been a feeder, but I hear it’s very intense.”

“The most intense,” says Timothée, low. “A voluntary feed creates a feeling of intense physical and mental passion for both parties involved. It’s like sexual pleasure at its finest; feeders describe the sensation to be similar to sex on ecstasy, particular when the act itself is involved in the feeding session. Often vamps and feeders enter into mutual relationships that last for many years, rather like marriage for humans, because they both become addicted. When a vampire encounters a voluntary donor with his or her preferred blood type, the bond is said to be a hundred times stronger.”

“And have you?”

“What?”

“Kept a pet with AB negative,” says Armie, snarkily. He has heard willing donors rhapsodizing about feed sessions as Timothée is describing them now, but he has been disdainful in the past, sees feeders as weak. 

“I don’t keep pets,” says Timothée, derisively. “I have multiple donors, and they are all willing. However...”

Armie watches his eyes grow dark.

“What?”

“When I encountered my first blood match, I was a very young vampire,” says Timothée slowly. “I was very bad at self control. I took too much, and...she died.”

“Ah,” says Armie, and despite the attraction smoldering between them he can feel how his body recoils from the admission. “Isn’t that a normal thing for you? Exsanguination?”

“Not all vampires,” says Timothée smoothly, “are brutes. I prefer to leave my victims - who I only take willingly, unless I am VERY desperate - alive and well. Unlike hunters, who often kill upon sight.”

Armie takes the insult without a flinch. “Many of us do, yes. I only kill when I’ve been hired to do so, when my hunt is directly responsible for the loss of a life valuable to my employers. It doesn’t happen often. Mostly, I observe.”

“I see.” Timothée blinks. “Is that what you’re doing tonight?”

Armie looks him up and down, measured, tries to keep the admiration from his gaze. The alcohol makes him fail.

“Clearly.”

Timothée smirks and the fangs come out again, still beyond normal length, and in response Armie can feel his veins pulse. “You’ve never been fed upon.”

“Me? No.” Armie shakes his head. “The only teeth I’ve let sink into me have been very much human.” 

Timothée bridges his dark, dark brows. “Is it my turn to ask a question?”

“I already know what you’re going to ask,” says Armie, “but go ahead.” 

“I was going to ask if you mind me joining you for another drink,” says Timothée mildly, flashing his furiously naughty grin, “because they serve chilled blood at this bar. Will that bother you?”

Armie has to admit that he is surprised, but nothing about this boy, save his status as a member of the supernatural realm, has proven predictable yet. “Be my guest.”

“Ah.” Timothée smiles, raises a hand for the attention of the bartender, who had taken to standing in brooding observation at the other end of the bar. “So you don’t need your peace, after all.”

Armie watches the line of Timothée’s arm and the swordblade starkness of his flawless jaw as he requests a glass of cold blood neat and thinks that in all his time spent working one of the most dangerous jobs in existence he has never been in deeper shit than he is now.


	3. Chapter 3

“So, you observe,” says Timothée, as he stirs his freshly procured goblet of crimson blood. “What have you observed tonight?”

Armie smiles, drags the nail of his forefinger down his own thigh; Timothée watches the movement with interest. “In general? Or should I get more specific?”

“Whatever you wish.”

“Let’s see.” Armie turns on his seat, canvasses the room, even though he already knows who’s who and what’s what and to which corners his attention should be pasted if he wants to be aware of potential unrest. “There are a few hunters here, although no one’s looking to pick a fight tonight, that would be absurd. Lots of vamps and their feeders. Some hopefuls looking to meet a member of the undead in the market for a pet. Two - maybe three, can’t decide on the third - weres, a titaness, and a few ghosts. Then you’ve got your handful of wealthy humans who are just here looking to feel scared, or important, or alive, you know. Typical crowd for a gathering like this.” 

“Who’s the possible third man-wolf?”

“Guy in the destroyed gray jeans and oversized sweater. Left corner behind me. Looks like he has enough hair for three people. No, don’t look, are you crazy?” Armie quirks an eyebrow at Timothée, who indeed has turned his gaze surreptitiously to observe. “Weres can scent the attention of vamps for miles. If he really is one, he’ll come looking for a fight if he catches you paying too much attention to him. What kind of vampire are you, Jesus, don’t you know that?” 

But he’s grinning over the lip of his goblet.

Timothée actually laughs out loud; this human hunter is sharp and amusing and he is not afraid at all. It is with certainty that Timothée can say this: if Armie were scared, he would emanate the cloying, cowardly stench of terror, and nothing exudes from him but the sweet alluring musk of his perfect, perfect blood. Timothée shudders thinking about it, the bond they could forge, the shattering pleasure that a feed would bring to them both.

“All right then,” he says, takes a drink from his cup. Licks rouge red from his lips and watches Armie’s eyes on his tongue. “Consider me impressed. Anything else?” 

“Let’s see.” Armie assesses him. “It’s been about a day since you’ve had a proper feed, and it wasn’t with someone you care about or whose blood type you particularly enjoy, so you’re getting hungry. This pre-packaged stuff will do, because it’s pretty high quality, but you’ll be on the hunt for a new victim pretty soon because you want the thrill. You’re maybe hopeful you’ll find that here. And you don’t disapprove of all blood being contaminated with alcohol, because there’s definitely a vodka shot in that glass.”

He smirks at Timothée, who is gazing back with amusement in his lush-lashed eyes.

“Did I pass?”

“Close,” says Timothée, nodding. “It’s actually been two days, so I’m hungrier than you originally assumed, I think. You’re right about the alcohol - when it’s not a bond feed, or a pleasure one, it’s nice to spike a drink every once in a while. If someone’s blood type is a perfect match for me, neither of us requires any enhancement with substance because the sensation of the feed is overwhelming enough as is. But you already know that, surely.” 

Armie grins at his cheekiness. “Maybe. Go on.”

“I wouldn’t say that I necessarily came here looking for someone to give me what I need,” says Timothée, replacing his glass on the smooth cold counter, “I have my donors to call for that, and you already know that it’s not my style to keep pets. I planned to come here long before I knew what my feed schedule would be like, so I did not intend to use this as a hunting ground. However...”

He circles his alabaster forefinger around the rim of the goblet; Armie notices for the first time that his nails are colored the perfect shade of coal black.

“Yes?” 

Timothée’s gaze ascends sharply from where his finger is perched on his cup to latch to Armie’s own. Something delicate, swooning, emotional, something very like the first low warble of a violin, erupts through Armie’s bloodstream. 

“You’re making things extremely complicated for me, hunter.”

Armie looks away, pulls deeply from his goblet; the first reaching fingers of ethanol warmth are curving through his chest and he is overly aware of the proximity of Timothée’s long thigh to his own. “It’s not exactly easy to resist the call of a blood match vamp, either.” 

Timothée’s fingertips tap rhythmically on the counter; his knuckles are white. “It’ll only get stronger the more vodka I drink. Right now I’m able to keep a leash on it, but the alcohol will lower my inhibitions, and you’ll start to feel it more intensely when it does. You’ll hear it like a song in your ears, feel it like a tingle in your veins...it’ll be hard for you to resist me.”

Armie arches a brow, squiggles his mouth in displeasure. It dismays him to learn that the current strength of the melody in his blood isn’t as acute as it might be. “You’re keeping a leash on it?”

“Yes,” says Timothée, and there is no subsequent jab at Armie’s lack of knowledge here. “Believe me when I say that things could get very publicly inappropriate very quickly if I tried to seduce you with everything I have.”

Armie laughs in spite of himself. “Mmm. Seems kind of unfair, don’t you think?” 

“Why do you think I’m telling you?”

Between Armie’s brows a slight fold of confusion appears; he searches Timothée’s radiant polychromatic eyes and finds only sincerity there.

“I don’t know,” he says slowly. “I would think that you wouldn’t want me to know, to make it easier to get what you want.”

“I told you I only take willing victims,” says Timothée. “I meant it.” 

His face is calm and steady and he doesn’t look away from Armie’s curious stare as he drains his goblet.

“My tolerance for alcohol is high. But I’m actually enjoying your company, hunter, and we’ve got a long night ahead of us that I’d rather not spend alone in a corner lusting after your blood, so if you’d rather I take it slow, I will respect your wishes.”

The mild suspicion lingering in Armie’s face reduces slightly.

“Either you’re a really good liar,” he says, slow. “Or you’re not like any other vampire I’ve ever met.”

Timothée smiles.

“Well,” he says, “you told me you mostly deal with vampires who have done your clients a great personal wrong. I’m assuming that means these vampires have taken the lives of their victims, or have a history of violating the unwilling. I find this caste of my kind to be vile. Without humans, we could not thrive, and I personally believe that we owe it to the source of our livelihood to at least acquire permission before we take what we need. I’m not overstepping when I say that a feed can be highly enjoyable for a human when it’s done correctly.”

Armie hates himself for how drawn he is; he feels like a lightning bolt seeking metal, it hasn’t been an hour and his entire body is howling. “And do you do it correctly?”

Timothée smirks. “I’d be happy to demonstrate.” 

“I’m sure you would.” Armie’s stomach contracts; against his greater instinct he signals to the bartender, nods in Timothée’s direction. “Can you get him another drink?”

Timothée’s face registers surprise. “You really aren’t afraid, are you?”

“Of you?” Armie smiles, shakes his head. “At first, I was concerned. You’re dangerous, and I can smell it on you. But don’t get your hopes up, vamp. You earned that drink." 

“I’m dangerous?” Timothée reaches out like a strike, tucks the collar of Armie’s jacket flat against his skin, avoids direct contact with his throat. “You’re a living, breathing hazard. I consider myself a relatively rational being, and I could lose my mind over you.”

Automatically Armie’s blood seizes; Timothée is so close to him and he can’t describe the sensation vaulting through him as anything other than _need_. “You probably shouldn’t do that.”

“I apologize,” says Timothée formally. “I usually have much greater control of myself. You have no idea how delicious you smell.”

“Yeah, well, not to be cliché, but I feel like a moth and you’re the flame, so I get it,” says Armie with his jaw clenched. He watches Timothée accept a fresh glass from the surly bartender, winces. “I was planning to go explore a little more before you deterred me. Would you like to join?”

“I would,” says Timothée smoothly, and he extracts his blade-slender body from underneath the bar, rises to his full height, stands beside Armie as he scouts the room. “Did you have a destination in mind? We’re fairly limited, as you can see.”

“I had vague visions of propping myself against a wall with a drink and watching chaos ensue.” Armie shrugs. “Did you guys have any kind of guidelines to adhere to for this? I had to submit to a background check and swear a hunter’s oath that I wouldn’t go after any supernatural creature before I was allowed in.”

“A hunter’s oath?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of like a blood oath. We have to go before the board of supernatural law enforcement and swear under penalty of licensure revocation that we won’t do whatever it is that they don’t want us to do. Cut your thumb to give a blood seal and everything. In this case, it was pretty informal since it’s just for a social gathering, but I’d be at least somewhat fucked if I violated the rules. Don’t try to get information about a target from anyone, don’t go after a target if he or she is present, et cetera.”

“Blood seal,” says Timothée, slowly. “Mm. Well. I didn’t have to do _that_ , obviously, but I was summoned by one of the secretaries to the Ancient Ones. The code of vampire at a public outing like this, where there will be inter-species mingling, is very simple. No exsanguination, no public feeding beyond a mild suck. Certainly nothing public between a pet and a keeper. Don’t get into it with a man-wolf. No vamps under the age of seventy-five, so no one is out of control. That sort of thing.”

“The Ancient Ones have secretaries?” Armie looks sideways at Timothée, grins. “That’s adorable.”

“Well. You can’t expect someone like Sekhmet or Bathory to deal with trivialities such as party rules.”

“Ahh, sweet Bathory,” says Armie, wrinkling his nose. “How is that old bitch?”

“Marvelous, I’d expect, but I’ve never met her,” says Timothée, annoyed by how pleasing he finds Armie’s sense of humor. They are still standing in front of the bar, looking blindly into the dense crowd, hyper-focused on the conversation. “We don’t all know each other, you know.”

“Obviously.” Armie nods. “But don’t you have to go before like the Council of Ancients or something when you first get turned? To get registered, or whatever?”

“We have to be seen and counseled by one of the Ancients,” says Timothée. “I was very young when I was turned. I was terrified.” 

“I would imagine so,” says Armie. “You couldn’t have been more than, what? Twenty?”

“I was twenty-three.”

“So who turned you?” 

“A vamp who was young and reckless,” says Timothée. “Left me weak, almost killed me actually, but I was turned in time when he realized how close I was to death and bit me in the correct vein. By the time I was aware of anything again I was already in the presence of my Ancient One, and I was hooked up to a blood IV.”

“Who was your Ancient One?”

“The one whose name shall not be revealed,” says Timothée, mysteriously. 

“Okay, Voldemort,” says Armie, hand in his pocket, smiling. Across the room he catches Joe’s eye; the elder hunter assesses the situation and shakes his head, but he is beaming.

“He’s just partial to his privacy,” says Timothée. “I can’t blame him, he’s one of the wealthiest individuals in the world. I’d protect myself, too, if I were him.”

“Fair point.” Armie sips from his goblet. “So, we haven’t moved. Pick a wall and we’ll go slouch against it and act aloof and brooding, like you were when I walked in.”

“All right,” says Timothée, pleased. “But I think I’m better at that than you are.”

“Without a doubt,” says Armie, deadpan. “Lead on.”

So Timothée picks an empty few feet of bone-wall and goes for it. The way he walks is runway elegance, all of him long and beautiful, arresting in his silken movement. Armie is stunned, mesmerized, and when they reach their destination he makes no secret of his attention. 

Timothée catches the interest in his eyes and he has been around too long to be worried about being coy. “You’re going to undress me with that look, hunter.” 

“You’re going to end me with that catwalk, vamp.”

Timothée smiles. “I was lead male for McQueen and Versace on the runway for a while. Maybe I’ll do it again in a few years, when trends shift. The travel did get tiring, though.”

“You’re beautiful enough to be the face of whatever brand you want to be,” says Armie bluntly. “I’m not trying to suck your dick or anything, but it’s true.”

“No?” Timothée smiles into his drink, scans the crowd. “Maybe I’m trying to suck yours. Would you let me?” 

Armie is clobbered; he can’t think of a single thing to say to that except: “Can we get away with that here?”

“So you would let me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. I’m very good at sucking things, you know. It’s kind of my profession.”

“Will you stop?”

“Do you want me to?” 

Armie blusters, furious, aroused. “Fuck off. No.”

“That’s what I thought.” Timothée’s eyes find Armie’s across the minimal space between them. “To answer your question, yes, there are places we can go here. Private chambers designed for feeders and pets to use if the urge between them becomes too strong. The party is in full swing now, so there will be an attendant waiting at the door for such a need. They will answer if someone raps four times on the other side, and take the willing party to one of the feed chambers.” 

Armie is hard despite himself. “You really want to suck my dick?”

“Didn’t stutter, did I?” Timothée is cocksure, glimmering at the green of his eyes.

“What’s in it for you?”

“The taste of you,” says Timothée smoothly. “And - ” 

“There’s an and.”

“Nothing impossible, relax.” Timothée is halfway through his second goblet and Armie might be imagining it but he thinks he can feel the pull of him growing fiercer. “You prick your thumb like a blood seal. You let me drink from that tiny wound. It’ll be good for both of us, but it’ll be about a tenth of what a true feed would feel like. Give you a taste, so to speak.”

Armie chuckles darkly. “I knew there was a catch.”

“Not so bad, is it?” Timothée’s face is charmed. “You know that I will only take someone agreeable to my wishes. But I not only want you, I like you, Armie, and I’d never forgive myself if I let you get away without at least attempting to woo you. I don’t offer blowjobs to just anyone. I still have some pride.” 

Armie looks sideways at him, studies his face, the Grecian jaw, the swordblade cheekbones. “In spite of myself, vamp, I like you too.”

“Good,” says Timothée, “because it would be terribly sad if you were wasting your night in the catacombs shooting the shit with someone you detested.”

They grin at each other, wide and open, and Armie catches the lengthening of Timothée’s fangs again, feels his pulse yowling.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met a blood match before,” he says, slow. “I’ve never been so much as tempted by a vamp before tonight. Not my thing.”

“But you’re tempted by me,” says Timothée, only half a question. 

“You already know the answer to that.” 

“Well, that is a compliment,” says Timothée. “You look like a literal God, has anyone ever told you? I’ve never seen anything quite like you before, and I’ve seen a lot.”

Armie looks away, but he can feel the heat of a flush building in his face. “Come on, vamp, you’re just trying to get into my veins.”

“I’ve already made my intentions clear. I don’t need to flatter you,” says Timothée. “You’re beautiful, hunter. Trust me.”

Together, in one swallow, they finish their drinks; when Timothée draws his mouth away from the rim of his goblet his full lips are stained cherry red. Armie pricks his nails into his palms and tries to focus and when he asks of himself the question _do you really want this_ the answer is _fuckng yes_.

“Okay,” he says. 

Timothée freezes, looks at him. “Okay?”

“Yes,” says Armie firmly. “But I want you to drink from me here. So you don’t, you know. Lose control.”

The smile that unfurls across Timothée’s face is indulgent. “I’m no novice. I won’t be rabid for a pinprick, even from a match. But if that’s how you’re comfortable, I have no problem with it.”

“Here?”

Timothée looks around. “Sure. No one cares about us. They all have their own agenda. Do you have a way to – ”

“Yeah,” says Armie, producing his keyring from his pocket; he keeps a tiny knife there at all times, just in case. 

“Wait,” says Timothée then. “Let me stand in front of you so I can block you with my scent. The second you open your skin every vamp in this room is going to smell you, and that’s the kind of attention we don’t want.”

He takes two steps so he’s standing square in front of Armie’s body, leans into him, raises Armie’s wrist so he’s holding it between them. 

“This should be enough,” he says, satisfied, “but once you make that cut your thumb is going immediately into my mouth, so don’t panic on me. Okay?” 

Armie smiles. “As long as _you_ don’t panic when you taste AB negative.” At his side he flicks open the blade, swipes a horizontal line across the pad of his thumb without so much as a grimace, and before his blood can even begin to pool at the surface Timothée draws it into his mouth, quick as a serpent’s assault.

For half a moment their eyes meet; then Timothée’s disappear back into his head as he inhales sharply through his nose, feeds from Armie’s thumb like he’s starving for it – which, Armie reasons, he supposes he is. The wet suction around his skin is like nothing he’s ever felt and if Timothée is doing this to his _thumb_ then Armie can’t begin to fathom what his mouth will be like around his cock. Instinctively he wraps his fist around Timothée’s skinny forearm and squeezes and then the full force of the blood song coming to fruition _slams_ him and he gasps out loud.

It is fulfillment; it is completion. There is nothing wrong with the world as it stands as long as Timothée is drinking from him, and it’s quick, barely more than five drops, but it is enough for Armie to get a glimpse of what a bond feed with Timothée could be like and his body _keens_ for it. He puts his hand on Timothée’s face and the dark one opens his eyes and they are bright, bright, bright, drenched with lust, with craving, with heat. He takes a last drag from Armie’s thumb and when he releases him he is panting.

“Jesus,” he chokes. “Jesus, you taste so fucking good.”

Needy, blind, he bulls forward into Armie’s body and their hips come flush and they are both hard and Armie drags a hand through Timothée’s ruckus curls, breathes him. The scent of peril is strong but he understands that this is his hunter instinct speaking and underneath the danger lies an aroma sweet as honeysuckle, drawing him in like a lure. He hisses,

“A tenth of a true feed?”

“Roughly,” spits out Timothée, blackeyed. “Do you understand now?” 

“I understand,” says Armie, and he is shaking. “Can we get out of here? I’m losing it.”

“Yes. Come.” And Timothée takes Armie by the wrist, pulls him imperiously through the crowd until they’ve reached the doorway. In the background the music thumps, wicked, intrusive, and all Armie can think about is the scream of his blood and Timothée’s mouth at his skin and the way his eyes went white for need. _You taste so fucking good_. 

He wonders how he got here, how none of his rules seem to matter tonight. He wonders if they will be able to stop. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhangers are so FUN, aren't they? ;) haha I suck (no pun intended) but I couldn't resist...


	4. Chapter 4

The air in the entranceway is dark, dark, dark and Armie is relying upon the hot fingers of alcohol streaking through his blood to erase the shame that fights to arise on his face: he, Armand Hammer, hunter of all things preternatural, is letting himself be seduced by none other than his usual prey: a creature of the night. His earlier self would be appalled; his current self is starved for it, a rabid dog snarling to be unchained, let loose. The siren of the blood match is screaming in his pulse points and his head is clear but his morals are fuzzy and he is comprised of need from bone to heart. Timothée’s alabaster-knuckled hand is still braceleted around his wrist and where their skin comes together flames lick, scalding.

On the door before them Timothée raps out a complicated little four-knock pattern with his free hand; Armie looks into his moonbright eyes and smiles.

“Have that memorized, do you.”

“Hey, a guy never knows when he’s going to get lucky,” says Timothée, and his speech is so modern Armie can’t help but grin for it. “Although in this case I’d say the term ‘luck’ is a gross understatement.”

Armie smirks. “Again with the flattery.”

“I’m about to let you blow a load down my throat. I think we’re kind of past that.” Timothée watches Armie’s face, clearly gratified when his face wipes blank, eyes going cavern-pitch for lust.

“Jesus Christ, vamp.”

“Well, what did you think, we’re sneaking off to talk?” Timothée is still grinning, captivated by his golden conquest. “You’re a hunter, yet you let me taste your blood, and in public no less. That deserves recompense.” 

Armie is about to muster a response when the door opens; a thin dark woman peers in, face perfectly expressionless. This is not the same Elvira clone who had earlier brought Armie into the depths of the catacombs and for that he is grateful. The shreds of dignity that remain within him demand anonymity. 

Timothée says something in low hypnotic French to the woman and she nods once, holds the door open so they can slip through. For a split second Armie’s instinct wills him to look back but he fights it, decides against it; he won’t be like Lot’s wife, reduced to a pillar of salt by his sin. It doesn’t matter that the party is in full swing now, doesn’t matter what happens there, it can’t touch him. No room full of darkness can sway his interest, not when he has let himself be seduced by this unparalleled creature of the night.

Down the black-and-white bone-studded hallway they trail their underworld guide, taking a left to descend further into the catacombs. Candles lick the walls, dictating the tone of the atmosphere, all witchery, macabre. Armie is existing in haze, thinking of the pinprick of Timothée’s fangs, thinking of _I’m about to let you blow a load down my throat._ When he turns sideways he finds Timothée’s eyes on him and they are so omniscient he feels gooseflesh rise on his arms.

“You look like you’re reading my mind.”

“It’s not hard,” says Timothée, amused. “Your face is a novel right now. You know how to do it, too, hunter, you’ve been reading me all night.”

“Have I?”

“Loud and clear.” Timothée’s hand on Armie’s wrist goes slack, he traces a finger down the side of his palm, drops his arm. “It’s one of the traits of a blood match. Each half understands the other without even trying. Can be difficult to get used to, I hear.” 

“And this is stronger because you’ve fed from me?”

Timothée gives a low chuckle. “Luscious as it was, I wouldn’t count that little sample as a feed.”

“Fair enough.” Armie peers ahead of them into the volatile semi-darkness. Their guide continues steadfastly on, heels clattering on the stone pathway, stalwart. “Was it substantial enough to strengthen the call?” 

“You tell me,” says Timothée softly, “can you feel my body singing to yours? Can you hear it?”

Armie cuts his eyes sideways again, takes a beat. When he speaks his voice is all strain and hiss.

“ _Con_ stantly.”

“Was it like that before?”

“I don’t know.” Armie is concentrating on the soldier march of their feet, brief mental occupation until he can get Timothée alone. “I mean, yes, it was. But there was background noise to cover it up. Now it’s...louder.”

Timothée smirks knowingly, remains silent; ahead of them, the wispy angled dark woman has stopped, turned to face the wall on their left hand side. When Armie and Timothée crowd close enough to her they can see a door with its outline carved into the bones and Armie has just enough time to marvel at the fact that the melancholic grisly catacombs can possibly hold so many secret rooms before she withdraws a key from the inner pocket of her Halloweenish cloak, inserts it into the lock. The door pops open easily and she swivels on one perfect heel to face them.

“Stay as long as you like,” she says, in deeply accented English. “If you need anything, there is a bell you can ring inside this room that connects to the front office, and we will attend to you. Should it be necessary, we have trained professionals waiting on hand to administer emergency blood transfusions.”

Her eyes slide briefly to Armie’s face and unbidden that inner chagrin rears like Cerberus to Hades’ call. He reminds himself that (1) she knows exactly what they are there for and (2) after this night, he will never see her again.

“ _Merci_ ,” says Timothée in his disarmingly charming lilt of a voice, and when he flashes a perfunctory smile Armie can see that his fangs are knife-edged, prominent; he isn’t the only one who’s been thinking about what might happen behind that door. Timothée plucks the key from her long phantom-shaded fingers and she bobs her crowfeather head and murmurs niceties before she swishes easily past them, back down the hallway in the direction they just came. It’s merely seconds before she vanishes into the black and then it’s just them and the flicker of candles and an open door, as inviting as the warm melody in Armie’s blood. _Give in_ , it screams, but he already did.

Timothée throws him a loaded look, easy smile on his lips. “Shall we?”

“After you,” says Armie, so Timothée leads their two-man procession through the entranceway. Instantly the slight damp chill of the corridor is gone, replaced by inviting warmth, cracking galloping flames contained by the fireplace centered on the left side of the room. A huge bed dominates the center, all blood-red velvet and black drapes around the frame, pillows of thickest fluff propped up against the headboard. It’s so fitting for the situation Armie groans aloud.

Timothée catches his expression, smiles. “It’s a bit much.”

“It’s Stephanie Meyer’s wet dream,” says Armie, laughing out loud. “Tell me, vamp, are you going to break the frame when you get me in bed? Bruise me beyond recognition, break my bones?" 

“To my knowledge, oral sex rarely takes such an intense turn,” says Timothée mildly, hands in pockets relaxed, but the tension in his jaw is obvious when Armie looks for it: even the dangerous one isn’t without nerves. “And if you’re trying to take things a step further, I think it would be quite difficult for me to snap any bedframes while I’m straddling you. You see, I very much prefer to ride, rather than be ridden.”

His eyes in the darkness gleam iniquitous. Armie is derailed, tries not to project.

“Do you." 

“I do.” Timothée shudders for the thought, delicious tingle down the rungs of his delicate spine. “And I think, if I’m reading you correctly, you prefer to be ridden, rather than to ride. Yes?”

“Yes,” says Armie, his voice one octave from a croak.

“Well, this is just lovely,” says Timothée wickedly. “A true blood match we seem to be. But don’t get any ideas, hunter. I promised you a blowjob, not a turn in the sack.”

His lips push together in a suppressed little smile and Armie chains the urge to cuff him fondly over the head; before he can even speak Timothée is in front of him again, invading his personal bubble, sleepy half-lidded eyes raised to his own.

“May I taste you again?”

Armie looks down at the crimson pinprick on his finger, stomach dropping for want, too far gone to allow guilt to permeate his heart. “Would you like to?”

“I think you know the answer to that question,” says Timothée, eyes locked to Armie’s cut, nostrils flaring. Lip curling up habitually to make room for the fangs that protrude brashly from his mouth. He is monstrous and he is magnificent and Armie is radiating want.

“You’re gonna put those fangs away before you go down on me, right?” Half-joking.

Timothée snorts. “I’m perfectly capable of tucking them, hunter. This is not my first rodeo.”

“I would certainly hope not,” says Armie, thrilling for the way Timothée addresses him; there’s something about the derogatory manner in which they are naming each other that ignites his need. “Yes, you can have another taste. I want to feel that again.”

Timothée gives an audible sigh, pulls Armie’s hand to his mouth, crescent emerald glinting on his finger. He prods at Armie’s tiny wound until the scarlet stream flows free, licks the trickle of blood that emits from Armie’s open skin in one slow sensuous go before he suckles the entirety of Armie’s finger into his mouth. Again the woozy slap of the blood match makes Armie’s vision go brown at the edges and from the way Timothée is _mmmm_ ing from his chest he knows the dark one is experiencing the same sensation. He breathes in shaky, wraps a huge hand around Timothée’s doll-boned arm.

“Jesus God, vamp.”

In response Timothée just moans, eyes closed as he matches their hips flush again. When he looks up at Armie his eyes are dark as three am, star-bright irises centered thinly around midnight pupils, thick feminine lashes. He is breathtaking and Armie can’t breathe for how much he wants him.

“Perfect, hunter,” gasps Timothée when he draws back, “so perfect.”

“When are you going to stop calling me _hunter_?” 

“When you stop calling me _vamp_.” Timothée is bullish in his retaliation. “Sit on the end of the bed. You’ll need something to hold on to.”

“I was going to use your hair,” says Armie, teasing upswing to his voice, but he obliges, revved by Timothée’s answering smirk. The bed is clouds and dreams and he falls into it, groans with delight.

“You can if you wish.” Timothée is still grinning, watching the lines of Armie’s body, measuring him. “But we can’t have your knees buckling on you, now can we.”

Armie bridges a dark gold eyebrow. “You talk a big game. Timothée.”

“You can decide for yourself whether it’s warranted when I’m done with you,” says Timothée, breezy, licking a hot circle around his plum lips. His teeth are tinged bloody and Armie surprises himself for how much he thrills for that. “Armand.”

“All judgments reserved,” says Armie. “Come here.”

So Timothée follows the sound of his voice, stands in front of Armie where he perches on the edge of the bed. Slides both hands through Armie’s hair, down the contours and mountains of his strong broad back, feeling him out. When they touch the song between them is positively operatic: swelling and whirling in beautiful crescendos, settling the air and correcting any imbalance that might exist in the room. “This is lovely. I’d forgotten.”

“How long since your last blood match?” Armie is only half attentive to the conversation; his palms skim up Timothee’s hips, the protuberant ribs, he is so thin he is nearly concave. Fragile, but only until he needed his supernatural strength, and then he was disarmingly strong. 

“Ages,” sighs Timothée. “Over three decades, I’d say. And that was just one feed.

“Ooh. Tough.” Armie has reached Timothée’s collarbones, stark as pickaxes under the fabric of his shirt. “It’s been three days since I’ve had my favorite meal and I’m losing it. I think thirty years might actually kill me.”

“Thirty years is nothing to my kind,” says Timothée, humored, dark-tipped fingers climbing Armie’s spine. “But I must confess, I’ve been craving AB a bit more than normal lately. The drug calls to its addict, you know.”

Armie smiles, gooseflesh building for his touch. “I like the way you use words.”

“Language is my favorite art,” says Timothée. “You’re proficient at wordplay as well. It’s not just your blood that interests me.” 

“I’ve been told I have a sexy brain.”

“That,” says Timothée, “is not an exaggeration.”

He slides down onto Armie’s hips, a long slender thigh on either side of him, straddling him. His arms curl serpentine around Armie’s neck, fingernails scratching up through his hair. They are nose to nose and Armie feels his lips part automatically.

“Do you taste like my blood?" 

“Find out,” dares Timothée, and he kisses him.

Armie’s heart starts flinging itself viciously against his jailhouse ribcage; their blood song is soaring, flying through his veins. He can’t remember feeling half this good from any other drug; not alcohol, not the good skunky weed from Holland, not even the euphoric rush of the purest, cleanest X he’d taken once on the coast of Northern California could top this. He licks up under Timothée’s top lip and his flavor is copper and chill and peril and it is instantly addictive. Armie yanks him down further and the slight friction the movement creates is enough to make him sigh into Timothée’s open mouth. His tongue keeps finding the blades of Timothée’s fangs and he is so, so intrigued. The vampire breaks away, blinks away his fog, says,

“Well?”

“Yes,” says Armie. “Metallic.”

“Do you hate it?” Timothée watches Armie’s eyes, genuine. “I’ll wash my mouth out with your orgasm, if you’d prefer that.”

Armie laughs like the breath has been punched from him. “Fuck. Do you really talk like this?” 

Timothée shrugs. “You lose your capacity to be embarrassed when you’ve been alive as long as I have.”

“That’s a loose term.”

“Well. In existence.” Timothée licks a fever stripe from Armie’s bottom lip to his top, light pressure, damp. “You get the point. Sticks and stones, and all that. It’s hard to be affected when you’ve heard it all.”

“You’ll have to teach me your ways.” Armie can’t stop kissing him, he is going mad for the taste, the intimacy; he’s never had anything like this and it feels like one of those romantic comedies where the protagonists are head over heels by the end of their first day together. Maybe it’s the blood match talking but he can’t credit that with everything, not when Timothée is how he is, intelligence and sharpness and empathy. Unusual.

Timothée says, “You embarrassed? Never.”

“You’ve made me blush at least three times tonight.”

“It looks well on you,” says Timothée fairly. “You have such a nice high color. Lovely.” He shifts his hips down again and Armie groans.

“Everything about you is lovely.”

“Thank you.” Timothée kisses him and the press of his mouth is deep, urgent, bitingly sexual; Armie gives a helpless purr because he can feel the way Timothée grins for it against his lips. Tasting his need. Before Armie even realizes it his jacket is half-unzipped and Timothee’s fingers are kneading at his chest, curious.

Pause, hesitation. They look at each other and Armie is aware that Timothée is searching for consent in his eyes.

“You’re allowed,” he says gently, and Timothée gives this naked _rrrr_ in the back of his throat and bares his fangs and then Armie’s zipper is undone, jacket flung back on the bed with him left in his shirtsleeves, all undulating muscle and the musk of his want. He rocks backward and Timothée in answer rocks forward automatically, grinding his crotch down roughly, and Armie tries to fall supine on his back but Timothée holds him upright with that shocking strength, shakes his dark curly head. 

“No. I want you at the end of the bed for a reason.”

Armie cocks his head. “Oh?”

“Oh.” Timothée leans in and slides his tongue the length of Armie’s throat; Armie can feel the points of his fangs dragging gently against his skin and bares his neck automatically, shudders. He can feel how Timothée stiffens, goes to bloody war with himself for control, and he loves it.

“And what, pray tell, is that reason?”

Timothée smacks his mouth in the middle of Armie’s throat, sucks, tasting, taunting. “I like to be on my knees.”

Armie drops his head back, bulldozed. “Will you stop?”

“What?”

“Fulfilling all of my kinks at once.” Armie nuzzles sideways into Timothée’s neck, nibbles gently, he can circle his arms almost twice the width of Timothée’s perfect tiny waist. “I have a thing for dominance.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” says Timothée. He slides back so he can get his fingertips under the hem of Armie’s shirt and his hands are freezing but that’s a side effect that Armie can live with.

“Blood match?”

“Blood match.” Timothée yanks up and Armie raises his arms so he can pull it over his tawny head. “We’re meant to fulfill each other’s sexual desires. Among other things.”

“Such as?”

“Basic compatibility,” says Timothée boldly. “To explain it most clearly I’d have to say that the term ‘blood match’ can be used almost interchangeably with the term ‘soul mate’. Don’t freak out, I know you’re going to.”

Armie’s heart has indeed missed a beat, but he takes it in stride, maneuvers out of his discomfort with a joke. “So you’re saying I better lock that down, then. Fuck if I didn’t leave my spare engagement ring at home.”

“Easy, tiger,” says Timothée, laughing. “It can also mean ‘best one night stand of your life’. Now shut up so I can suck your cock.”

He pushes back, curls fingertips down the hard ridges of Armie’s abdomen, thrilling for how the skin beneath his touch trembles. His hunter’s body is perfect, carefully sculpted from years of training and dedication, thick muscle and ropy snaking veins and copper skin. Timothée makes no secret of his interest, purring sharply in his throat as he pushes the heel of his hand down the hot line of his cock, wanton. Armie watches his hand, sucks in the sharpest of breaths. Plucks at Timothee’s sleeve.

“Can you take this off?”

“Sure. It’s only fair.” Timothée shrugs out of his blazer, rips his skintight shirt off, and he is pale as a pearl and astonishingly thin and Armie wants to hold his tiny bird-thin shoulders down while he fucks him down into the bed, all control. “Happy, hunter?” 

Armie drinks him in, wonderment. “Very.”

Timothée smiles, makes no comment, instead mouths his way hot as fire down Armie’s chest. He slips backward so he can slide down the edge of the bed and anchor his knees on the thick, thick carpet, palms pressing down into Armie’s huge thighs for leverage. With one hand he reaches between them and rubs over Armie’s crotch, feeling him out, curious for what he’s working with. When Armie gives a short sharp hiss above him he is gratified, grins like a wolf. He’s quick at his work and he has Armie unbuttoned and unzipped in seconds; Armie repositions so he can can work his jeans down over his hips and then he’s just in his boxers and Timothée can’t stop watching his face. He pulls his upper lip back because he’s starving, he can’t help it, and he understands that Armie is attracted to the sight of his arousal.

“Relax, hunter. I told you I know how to tuck them.”

“Stop fucking reading my mind.” 

“That wasn’t your mind. That was the fear in your eyes.” Timothée plucks at Armie’s waistband, pulls slowly down, and Armie obliges him by slipping off his boxers, bares all. Timothée’s mouth goes dry. “At any rate by the looks of things it’s me that should be afraid.”

Armie can’t hide his quick massive grin. “Oh yeah? This isn’t your first rodeo.”

“Calm down. I like a good challenge.” Timothée pats Armie’s inner thigh, leans in and blows hot tantalizing air across the crown of Armie’s thick quivering cock. He nudges it with his nose, worshipful, deliberately cautious, withholding himself with everything he has. He lowers his head so he can press kisses up the length of Armie’s inner thigh, up around his lower stomach to lick the thatch of his treasure trail, down the other leg. He is excellent at deliberate avoidance and when he pulls back to nuzzle once more against the length his cheek comes away wet. Armie is leaking.

Timothée _mmmm_ s.

“Eager, hunter.”

“Cocktease, vamp.” Armie presses thumbprints along Timothee’s axblade jawline, tongue tracing the outline of his lips. “You have such a goddamn pretty mouth, you know that?”

“Yeah?” Timothée drops a kiss on the slit, licks salt from his own skin. “You have the perfect cock for riding, you know that?”

Armie groans aloud, brain-dead for lust. “You should give it a try sometime.”

“You asking?” Timothée reaches between them, bats at Armie’s cock, hard as granite. Tries not to let delight scamper across his face, because he wants this, wants to keep Armie around long enough to tempt him to experience the feed. Longer, if he’s honest with himself.

“I’m asking,” growls Armie, hand coming up to fist in Timothée’s sin-black curls. “But right now I want you to give me your mouth.”

“I know.” Timothée drags his tongue up the pulsing underside vein; when he comes in contact with Armie’s skin his golden body jerks involuntarily. His breathing is ragged and Timothée is wild for it and he gets a hand between his own thighs and unzips himself, withdraws his cock so he can play. He’s a slut for giving head, high from Armie’s blood in his system and their constant shrieking song, and he’s hard as iron. Needy. 

“Do you always tease like this?” Armie pushes himself off his elbows, cranes his neck to watch where Timothée’s hand moves lazily between his elegant slender thighs. Hisses, “Jesus.”

“No.” Timothée grins. “You’re making it worse on yourself by wanting too much.” 

“What can I say, it’s a vice.”

“Patience is a virtue, hunter,” says Timothée wickedly, and then he braces himself on Armie’s thighs and swallows his twitching cock whole. 

Armie chokes, forgets to worry about the fangs, anxiety wiped clean by the all-consuming heat of Timothée’s mouth. He’d thought it would be cold - vampires don’t tend to carry heat - but there is only warm suction encompassing him, no trace of chill or sharp. Mindnumbing, blood-thumping pleasure, song of the blood match roaring between them like the most intense part of a chorale, ensnaring. Timothée is making little whimpering noises at the back of his throat and the force from each blast of air he releases pours more blood into Armie’s cock, that involuntary twitch. Armie’s fingers braid into Timothée’s hair and normally he’s conscious of not pressing too hard but Timothée is taking it like a champ, letting Armie fuck up gently into his mouth, the head of Armie’s furious swollen cock scraping the tender wall of Timothée’s throat. Armie thinks at any moment that he might pop off, take a break.

But Timothée only gives this unholy moan for it, keeps his head anchored so Armie can thrust, one white blue-veined hand clutching at Armie’s thigh, the other wrapped around his own cock jerking himself with increasing intensity. Precum pours from his slit and the ease with which he strokes himself is too much, too soon; he might be nearly two centuries old but when it’s good it’s good and sex with a blood match is better than _anything_ and he knows he can’t last. Armie’s huge solid cock fills his mouth and his throat and his fangs are piercing at where he’s folded them into his cheeks and he can’t stop thinking about _you should give it a try sometime_.

In his head a vivid photograph-image: Armie flat on the bed watching Timothée roll his fae-boned hips down on his cock, minuscule identical fang-holes at the side of his neck, his own blood dried in paint spatters on his skin and cloying on Timothée’s tongue. Ecstasy. 

Timothée has never had sex with a blood match; he’s never been so lucky. Then again, he’s never met a blood match quite like this one. He’s never wanted to pursue anything more in his entire existence. Underneath him Armie is shuddering and his muscles are twitching and from his chest scrapes a raw sort of sound, a sobbed-out cry, something that permeates Timothée’s universe and changes him. 

“Fuck, vamp,” pants Armie, and his fingers clench in Timothée’s hair. “I’m close.”

In answer Timothée slaps at Armie’s thigh, squeezes; unspoken consent. The slick salt flowing from the head of Armie’s cock has intensified in thickness and flavor and Timothée is fucking down recklessly into his own hand and there is nothing but white noise in his head and the shimmer of approaching orgasm in his veins. Around Armie’s pulsing cock he swallows, moans, and Armie drops his head back and a cry rips from his throat and then he is coming, thick milky spurts flowing down Timothée’s throat. Timothée loses it for that, rucking wantonly into his own palm as he spills his seed, waves and waves of pleasure radiating through his core. He knows Armie as metal and salt and he is addicted already, hadn’t lied when he’d compared AB blood to his own personal brand of heroin. He pulls back, looks Armie in the eye, gives a very deliberate swallow. Armie rumbles.

“Get up here.”

Timothée climbs him, shoves him flat on the bed, slides his tongue into Armie’s mouth, their bodies gliding glossy together, remnants. They kiss and kiss and Armie registers how ridiculous it is that his resolve has wholly dissolved in such a negligible amount of time.

“All right,” he says, “you talk the talk _and_ you walk the walk. That was fantastic.”

Timothée’s smirk is vulpine. “I appreciate that.”

“How did you do it, vamp?”

“Do what?”

“Seduce me.”

“I think it’s you who seduced me, hunter,” says Timothée, husky, and smiles. Armie pulls him down for another kiss and wonders how, how, how they are going to proceed from here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sick and I wrote this on like three different kinds of medications so I'm really sorry if it sucks! Thanks for bearing with me, guys <3


	5. Chapter 5

“So now the question is,” says Timothée lazily with his palm pressed flat over Armie’s heart, fingers tracing at the dips of his collarbones, “do we spend the rest of the evening in here? Or do we return to the soirée?”

Armie smiles for his word choice. “Mm. Is the walk of shame a thing within the supernatural community?”

Timothée smirks. “Well, I couldn’t say for sure. It’s never been, as you say, _a thing_ for me personally because I went to university during a time when any kind of open sexual act outside of marriage was really nonexistent. If it did exist, it was very secret and _very_ shameful.” He shrugs one doll-thin shoulder. “I told you nothing embarrasses me. Would it bother you?”

“Not at all,” says Armie, truthfully. He’s played with the idea of chagrin long enough that night; he is a grown man, the opinions of others can’t touch him. “No one knows us here, anyway.”

“Oh, I have a few acquaintances,” says Timothée smoothly, “and I did see you speaking to that older hunter earlier. But does his opinion matter to you?”

“Joe? I met him when I walked in,” says Armie, fingertips curling through Timothée’s waves, thick silk against his skin. “He was all right.”

“I would imagine it’s frowned upon in the hunter community for one of your kind to engage in relations with one of mine,” says Timothée, amused. He props up on one elbow, gets a finger through the chain at Armie’s neck, examines the pendant there. “Is that not so?”

“To tell you the truth, I’ve never really thought about it,” says Armie. “No one ever explicitly told me not to, but given my line of work, I think it’s just understood. Don’t know if it’s illegal.”

“Well, I’m good at keeping secrets,” says Timothée with a complete lack of concern. “I’ve had lots of practice. What’s this medal you have? A saint?”

“Yes. It was my mother’s. St. Anne.” Armie shrugs. “I’m not Catholic, it’s probably sinful for me to even wear it. But it reminds me of her.”

Timothée’s mouth at Armie’s neck is firm. “Sinful. Do you believe in God, hunter?”

“I believe in what I know,” says Armie. “So, not really. But there’s a lot in this world that’s tough to explain, so I try not to rule anything out. Like you.”

“And like you and me together in this room, right now.” Timothée chuckles. “When I first spoke to you I thought you’d never even entertain the notion.”

“Yeah, well. You’re hot. It helps.” Armie throws a shit-eating grin; Timothée laughs out loud, wrongfooted again. He likes that, likes that Armie is quick, doesn’t take shit, doesn’t fall over him. In his day Timothée has dealt with his fair share of vapid fang-chasers and Armie is the farthest thing from that particular breed of human. “Just fucking with you. I mean, you are. But you’re a lot of other things, too.”

“So are you,” says Timothée. He cocks his head, regards him. “Do you need anything? Food? Humans usually want food after sex, right?”

Armie snorts. “Like you weren’t human once?”

“It has been an extravagantly long time since I’ve ingested anything but blood,” says Timothée, not without a twinge of sadness. “For now I’m satisfied from what I drank at the bar. Stay tuned, though, I might ask you for another sample.”

Armie grins. “Addicted already? Timothée?” It’s weird for him not to use the derogatory term; _vamp_ expels so easily from his trained tongue, but Timothée is not simply _vamp_ , he is _knowledge_ and _conversation_ and _beauty._

“Aren’t you? Armand?” Timothée knows he is correct by the walloped look in Armie’s eyes.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Armie leans in, grinning, to kiss him, and Timothée gives himself to the sensation like Alice to the small pill, down the rabbit hole. “I’m not quite ready for food, but I could use some more bourbon.”

“We can make that happen.” Timothée rolls to his side, reaches for the bell hanging by their bed. “Are you particular towards a certain brand?”

“Angel’s Envy,” says Armie automatically. “Hunter’s favorite poison.”

“That’s what the cool kids are drinking these days?” Timothée is grinning.

“Seriously, they could make a commercial.” Armie runs a slow finger down the rungs of Timothée’s obvious spine. “Like Dos Equis, but with a guy in ripped leather and lots of knives and crosses, so it would be infinitely more badass.”

“Yes, I believe their gentleman styling himself the most interesting man in the world is sorely mistaken.” Timothée shrugs, rings the bell. Through the air it chimes, first strong like a baby’s cry, then fainter and fainter as echoes rip it to shreds. “We should get dressed. Just in case they come barging in here.”

“I thought nothing embarrassed you?”

“It doesn’t,” says Timothée with dignity, “but I don’t make it a habit of letting strangers see me naked. I have to at least share a drink with them first, preferably some witty conversation as well.”

He grins like a rogue and Armie can’t help but mirror it.

“Fair point,” he says. He sits up, leans down to the floor to retrieve his pants, stands up and steps into them in one fluid motion. When he turns back around Timothée is sitting on the end of the bed observing him, already fully clothed again, as impeccable as though he’d just finished readying himself for the evening.

“You know, it’s really not fair how quickly you guys can move.”

“Eh. I try to keep it under control. Humans don’t like it when vampires blur in front of them.” Timothée lifts one skeletal shoulder. “It unnerves them, I think.”

“It can be discomfiting,” says Armie fairly. “Something that looks like you, speaks like you, seems by all accounts to be human - and then it just moves from one side of the room to the other in a nanosecond? It’ll freak you out.”

“Does it freak you out?” Timothée loves to repeat him, loves his modern American-isms.

“Used to.” Armie winks. “I’ve acclimated.”

“Ah, a seasoned pro.”

“Well, I don’t like to brag.” Armie shrugs and this time it’s his turn to flash a sultry little grin. “But yeah. Yet another perk of the profession. You get so used to seeing weird supernatural creatures doing their weird supernatural things that you stop batting an eye.”

“Vampires are weird supernatural creatures, are we?” Timothée has spent so much of that evening with some form of a grin on his face that he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to make it settle back into its natural position.

“I’ve seen weirder.”

Timothée is about to make inquiries when a sharp rap on the door sounds; Armie is closer and he crosses the distance to the entryway in three steps. Elvira #2 is back with her placid expression and straight-spined posture.

“Mr. Hammer.” She nods at him politely, looks behind him to Timothée. “Mr. Chalamet. What can I do for you?”

“Wow.” Armie is surprised. “Good with names, huh?”

“Staff at the Catacombs are required to learn the names and faces of every visitor present during every special event,” says the woman. Armie can tell she’s explained this multiple times during her employment with the organization; her tone has taken on the cadence of a ride spiel at Disneyland. “It makes proceedings much smoother for both staff and guests. Now, what may I do for you?”

“Uh, Angel’s Envy neat for me,” says Armie, looks back at Timothée. “And...”

“Whatever type of chilled blood you have on hand, please,” says Timothée politely, “with Grey Goose.”

“Very good. Would you like a food menu brought with your drinks as well, Mr. Hammer?”

“Sure,” says Armie. “Thank you.”

“I’ll return shortly,” says the woman, and for the first time she gives them a tiny smile before turning to disappear down the corridor once more.

“The way she just vanishes into that tunnel is honestly creepy,” says Armie frankly, retreating back into the room, leaning on the door as he shuts it.

“Yeah?” Timothée shakes his head; this hunter is endless entertainment. “That’s the creepiest thing that’s happened to you tonight?”

“Well, besides the fact that we have a thousand dead people staring us down at all times.” Armie shrugs. “Including while you sucked me off. But, you know, I’ve been trying not to dwell.”

“It didn’t seem to distract you from the task at hand,” says Timothée nonchalantly, purring satisfaction in his voice.

“No. You made sure of that,” says Armie, quirking an eyebrow. “And no fang scrape, either, very impressive.”

“I told you,” says Timothée calmly, “I’ve had years of practice.”

“Clearly.” Armie wanders over to the bed, leans down so he can kiss him on the mouth, open mouths and curious tongues. “I’ve never had someone like sucking me off so much they can cum from it.”

Timothée’s head is tipped back, dark curls spilling everywhere, sensual smile on smooth pretty lips. “I’m a bit of a slut for giving head.”

Armie closes his eyes, rolls them to the ceiling, puffs out air. “And you continue to amaze me with how you speak.”

“That’s the problem with humanity,” says Timothée, quite calmly. “No one ever says what they really mean. Nothing’s embarrassing if you talk about it enough.”

“You can talk about coming for giving me head as often as you want,” says Armie, “but fair warning, you might start something again.”

“Oh, did you think I was done with you?” Timothée’s eyes are astonishingly incorrigible. “No, no, hunter. I’m just getting started with you.”

Armie’s toes curl; Timothée turns him on just by existing. “Who says I’ll let you?”

This is so preposterous that Timothée looses a low, rich chuckle, cocks his head. “You. Or have you forgotten your earlier invitation?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m giving you shit.” Armie kisses him again, resists the urge to shove him flat onto the bed, pin his hands and ruck against him until they both come, viscous salt mixture. He compromises by sitting down next to Timothée on the plush mattress, wrings his hands. “Like I could walk away from you after that blowjob.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” says Timothée, teasing. “I’m just a warm mouth to you, hmm.”

“Lucky for you that mouth knows how to do more than just suck.” Armie smiles, ribbing back. “Anyway, how do I know I’m not just another feed to you? You could be using vamp hypnosis to seduce me into letting you drain me, and I’d never have a clue. Not really a fair playing field, here, vamp.”

Timothée snorts. “If I had an ugly history, I’d never have been allowed into this event. Trust me. I heard Bathory wanted to come, and she was denied. They’re not fucking around tonight.”

Armie is torn between amusement at his counterpart’s ability to swap from formal, archaic linguistics to milennialisms such as _not fucking around_ and shock at the fact that a vampire so ancient and renowned as Elizabeth Bathory could even _be_ denied entry to anything she wanted to do. “They didn’t let _Batty_ in? Jesus.”

Timothée laughs out loud, a startled, crystalline bellchime that sharpens the air. “Batty? Is that what your kind calls her?”

“Yeah. Really takes away the whole respect factor. If you think of a woman who tortured and exsanguinated her female servants just to bathe in their blood as _Batty_ , you’re denying her the dignity she is clearly desperate for.” Armie is all golden grin and cheeky dimples. “The Impaler we call _Vlaaaaaaad._ You have to say it like that, though, listen: ‘oh, it’s _Vlaaaaaaad_ again.”

Timothée is laughing genuinely now, leaning forward from his hips to rest his palms on his knees. “Christ.”

“Hunter humor.” Armie shrugs. “I’m sure we’d all be dead if they knew.”

“I don’t know. I think they have better things to do. Ancient Ones think of humans as fleas.” Timothée can’t stop chuckling. “ _Vlaaaaaad_ rarely comes down from his castle these days. Or if he does, it’s not widely advertised.”

“Sounds great when you say it,” says Armie, grinning. “Isn’t that kind of blasphemous, for a baby vamp to make fun of an Ancient One? Kinky.”

“I am not a _baby vamp_ ,” says Timothée indignantly, “I am an _adolescent,_ thank you very much.”

“Oh god. I was just kidding with the baby vamp shit. They really think of you as an adolescent? So I just let a teenager suck me off?”

“Will you shut up?” Timothée smacks him on the arm, but he’s still laughing. “Are you always this insufferable?”

“Sometimes,” says Armie cheekily, and at that moment a second knock at their door announces the arrival of their beverages. Elvira #2 - who at last introduces herself as Julianna - leaves them with drinks, a menu, and strict instructions to ring her immediately if they need anything else at all.

“I think she’s hoping for a glimpse of the action,” whispers Timothée, once the door has closed again behind her.

“Honestly, probably.” Armie shrugs, sets the tray down on the bed, climbs atop it once more. “If she knows our names, she probably knows that I’m a hunter, and obviously she knows that you’re a vamp because no human I'VE ever met orders blood with a shot of Grey Goose. I'm sure that's enough to pique her interest.”

“Maybe.” Timothée settles back against the pillows, takes a tiny sip of his blood, grimaces. “Ooh. This is much more high quality than the stuff they serve out there.”

“Still not my blood,” says Armie, cheeky.

“Scale it back, killer. Don’t get too full of yourself yet.” Timothée is fully aware that Armie has every right to be cocky about the potency of the blood match; he’s still half in shock that such a stoic hunter would cave for him. “So. You became a hunter because it was a family tradition, is that right?”

“Yeah. More or less.” Armie steadies the tray, joins him at the head of the bed, settles in with a contented sigh. “I was around it my whole life, I was interested, good at it. It was a natural progression of life for me.”

“Makes sense.” Timothée reaches over, strokes Armie’s hair back from his face. “Was she as pretty as you, hunter?”

Armie flushes, unexpectedly, and the pink coloration of his cheeks is endearing. “She was beautiful. Far more beautiful than I ever will be.”

“I find that hard to believe. I’m sorry she’s gone. I’d have liked to see such majesty in person.” Timothée lets Armie kiss the back of his hand. “I don’t remember a lot about my parents. It’s been a long time since they died, and once my father found out I’d been turned, he shunned me. Vampires were thought of as devils back then, even more so than they are now. We were - ah - abominations of the Lord.”

“And your mother? Did she accept you?”

“My mother saw me secretly until the day she died,” says Timothée, and he smiles sadly. “I made sure she never wanted for anything. She was darling. Nicole, she was called.”

“I bet she was the most astonishing woman on earth,” says Armie, smiling gently when Timothée shoots him a gratified look. “I’m glad she stuck by you. That must have been rough, your father treating you like that.”

“It would have been worse without her,” says Timothée earnestly, and he shakes his head. “But these topics, they’re too sad for the occasion. I much prefer talk of Batty and Vlad.”

“You mean Vlaaaaaaad,” corrects Armie, and Timothée snorts again.

“Exactly.”

“Maybe one day, when you become an Ancient One, you’ll get a fun nickname.” Armie stretches his legs out, sips from his glass. “They’ll over-pronounce your name because they’ll know you hate how pretentious it is. TEEmoTAY.”

“Fuck off, hunter.”

“Make me.”

With haste like a serpent strike Timothée moves so his lips are at Armie’s throat; Armie sucks in a breath but doesn’t move, shudders for the sensation of teeth at his skin. Instantly, distractingly, he is aroused, blood hammering, nerves singing in harmony with the melody of their match.

“Unfair, vamp.”

“Who said anything about fair?” Timothée is intoxicated by his scent and he is aware just from Armie’s pulse, how it quickens for him, that the blood song is crooning once more. “You said to make you. You didn't give me parameters.”

“It worked.” Armie swallows, tries not to lean into him. “You win.”

Timothée licks up the line of his neck, into his ear, hot breath in sensitive nooks. “Mmm. I like you like this.”

“Like what?”

Gently Timothée leans down, matches their lips together, luxuriant in his kiss. “Wanton.”

“Good word, vamp.” Low.

“Thank you, hunter.” Timothée lifts his top lip, reveals the extension of his fangs. Armie watches them and despite himself he is so, so interested.

“Hungry?”

“When your pulse is as strong as it is right now, it’s hard to ignore.” Timothée sighs, leans back. “It’s lovely.”

“I like to watch your fangs,” says Armie frankly. “It’s like I’m watching you get hard. Really intimate.”

Timothée is pleased. “There. Honesty. Bravo, hunter.” He takes Armie’s hand, rests it gently on his waistband. “Feeling me get hard is intimate, too.”

Armie takes the bait, slides his fingers down to rub over Timothée’s cock, pulsing gently beneath his touch. “It is.”

“You know,” says Timothée, and his voice is croaky, “I really wouldn’t hate it if we spent a substantial amount of the rest of the evening in this room.”

“Me neither,” answers Armie, and then Timothée launches himself at him and gets his knees pinned on either side of Armie’s thighs and they are grinding together, drinks forgotten, blood song intensifying between them. And Armie with the last coherent parts of his upstairs brain thinks, really, he wouldn’t hate it if they didn’t make another appearance at the party that night at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's REALLY FUCKING HARD to not make this straight PWP but I think because Armie is such an established hunter, so hesitant about the whole thing, that their conversation and rapport is incredibly important to establish before the feed and the sex (because we all know that's coming, let's be real here, even if Armie has to get Timmy back to his place to proceed). I could write dialogue between these two for AGES, there's so much for them to talk about, so I hope you guys like it...and let the tension build ;)


	6. Chapter 6

“Remind me again,” says Timothée low with his fangs scraping gently against the side of Armie’s elongated throat, “why we got dressed.”

“I believe that was your idea,” says Armie, congratulating himself for the assured quality of his voice. His treacherous heart is still thumping with the cadence of a rabbit’s hind legs and his fingertips have gone numb for want. “Something about not wanting complete strangers to see you naked.”

“Ah.” Timothée twists his mouth. “Well. I never said my judgment was perfect.”

“It’s not bad,” says Armie, grinning. “I mean, you picked _me_ out of the crowd.”

Timothée draws back so he can look into Armie’s eyes, glow-glinting in their jest. Armie has noticed that Timothée does this ruinous thing where he slides his tongue out between his lips to wet them when he’s thinking, or trying to conceal his amusement, or intently watching something; he is doing it right now and Armie wonders from which of the three options this current gesture rises. When Timothée pulls his tongue back in he folds his lips one atop the other and Armie presses a thumb to the middle of his pale bloodless mouth and sighs.

“I told you not to go getting a big head, hunter,” Timothée says, and Armie grins for triumph; he can tell from the cadence of Timothée’s voice that he is amused. “The blood song made that easy for me.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” says Armie innocently, “but you think I’m hot, too.”

Timothée laughs, again pushed back on his wrong foot, exasperated. “You continue to be insufferable.” 

“Part of my charm.” Armie kisses the side of his jaw, working his mouth slow over Timothée’s skin, coaxing goosebumps. “So. If I have a thing for dominance, and we’re a blood match, does that mean you have a thing for submission?”

Timothée chuckles, arches his throat for Armie to taste. “Depends what you mean by _submission_.”

“Well, you said you’re a slut for giving head, which, don’t take this the wrong way, you clearly are – ”

“ – watch yourself, hunter – ”

“Hey,” says Armie, licking up Timothée’s neck, hungry. He can hear the continued amusement in the dark one’s voice, has no dread of repercussion; this is the way they are with each other. “To me, that’s the hottest thing in the world. In the future I’m definitely going to jerk off to the thought of _you_ jerking off sucking my cock.”

Timothée rolls his hips atop Armie’s, moans low in his throat when Armie seizes his sprite-narrow waist. “You _do_ like that, don’t you.”

“I do.” Armie isn’t worried about exposing his kinks. “But I don’t know much about what _you_ like, except that you prefer to ride, and you like dick down your throat, and apparently you have a penchant for my blood.”

Timothée is entranced; he echoes Armie’s earlier words. “Do you really talk like this?”

Armie grins, knows exactly where he learned that line, banters right back. “You said you lose your capacity to be embarrassed when you’ve been alive as long as you have. Well, I lose my capacity to be embarrassed in front of someone after they’ve swallowed my orgasm.” 

“Fair point.” Timothée reaches down for the hem of Armie’s shirt, works it slowly over his head, leans back to observe. He’ll take his time during this second round, familiarize himself with scars and lines and patterns of hair, no desperate rush when they’ve established that they’ve got, at the very least, all night. “You’re not wrong, though. I do tend to prefer to _be_ dominated rather than to dominate. Although the act of feeding itself is quite – ah – assertive.”

“Naturally.” Armie takes one of Timothée’s chill long-fingered hands, brings it to the uneven slash of scar tissue along the left side of his muscular chest. “You said you like to be on your knees.”

“I do,” says Timothée without elaborating. His eyes, Bible-black framed by that marvelous ring of polychromatic color, linger on the line of strange skin beneath his fingertips. “What happened here?”

“Lycanthrope,” says Armie casually, pleased; he understands that they will be performing a study of his flaws now, and he’s okay with it as long as Timothée keeps straddling him like this, one lean thigh on either side of his hips, slow subtle _constant_ grind. “I was a novice hunter, didn’t know how to conceal myself properly. Got caught under a full moon studying the transformation process. Mom was there shadowing me when I was attacked, otherwise who knows what might’ve happened.”

Timothée curls his lip. “Thank God she was. You might have been made a man-wolf yourself.”

“And the smell of dog would override the blood match?”

“It very well might.” Timothée is still tracing the blemish, finding its edges and limitations, tender. “Dirty things, werewolves. Although I have heard rumors that members of my kind have mated with members of theirs in the past.”

“Love knows no bounds, as they say,” says Armie, grinning for his obvious distaste. “You don’t like them.” 

“I don’t,” says Timothée. “Vampires don’t like weres, and weres don’t like us; our separate species have never seen eye to eye. Whatever multitudes fiction has gotten wrong about the supernatural world in the past, it always seem to get that little tidbit right. Weres find us arrogant; we find them disgusting. While vampires generally agree that turning humans should be avoided unless there is a _very_ good reason, weres have the opposite viewpoint. They like to contaminate the world with as many new half-breeds as they can, whereas we see turning as a very serious matter, one that should be carefully considered on all sides, if possible. I was turned because I was near death, and my attacker took pity on me. He never meant to kill me and decided that I would find eternal life sufficient payback for how he had wronged me.”

“And do you agree with his decision?”

“I do, actually,” says Timothée, leaning down to mouth along the scar, tongue gentle against Armie’s skin. “At first, I wasn’t sure. Immortality scared me as much as thinking about my own finite life used to. But I enjoy who I am. My own limitless timeline has allowed me many freedoms that I could not enjoy as a mortal. I’ve read hundreds and hundreds of books; I’m fluent in twelve languages. I can play piano and I’ve walked the runway for some of the most renowned designers in the world. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of my existence, because I love the world, and I will always have much to learn from it. I’m grateful that I was turned.”

He parts his lips over Armie’s skin, drags his teeth over his heart, the blood song crooning between them, and smiles.

“I’m glad you’re not a were. You had qualms about getting with me because of who you are. It would have been that bad, or possibly worse, for me if you were one of them.”

Armie rucks Timothée’s curls, pulls him down, runs his tongue over the upper line of his teeth so he can feel his fangs.

“Not so hard to understand from that perspective, then.”

“No, indeed. But I had to try. You were far too interesting to be left sitting alone at that bar all night.” Timothée’s fingers move on, circle each of Armie’s nipples, raised red pencil erasers under his stimulation. “Are you glad I did?" 

“Mm. Very.” Armie kisses him, luxuriant, sensual. “And for the record, I’m glad you were turned, too. Otherwise I’d never have known you.” 

“Funny to think of, isn’t it? That blood matches as rare as ours can exist in different timelines?" 

“Pity, really,” says Armie, hands canvassing Timothée’s sides, “although you got to me in time. I’m not so much older than you were, when you were turned.”

Timothée looks at him, obvious fond in his fascinating eyes. “Am I allowed to ask how old?”

“Eh. Maybe. If you behave,” says Armie, and his tone is casual but his eyes are not. Around them the candles jump and twirl, volatile gyrations in the darkness of the room. “Am I allowed to ask how you like to be fucked?”

“You are allowed,” says Timothée, and there is something primal in his eyes. “My answer depends upon the situation. If it’s during a feed, I like to ride or be fucked against a wall, so I can get my teeth in properly. If it’s just sex, no feed, I still enjoy those positions, but I am a big advocate of – as they say – _doggy style_. That, and being on my back, ankles on shoulders. That’s always enjoyable, especially if I’m with someone who knows what they’re doing.”

Armie is aware that his cock is twitching involuntarily for Timothée’s admission; he can decorate the air with vivid pictures from verbal description alone, and Armie can tell from the dark one’s face that he’s wholly aware of his effect. “So I’m going to assume, then, and correct me if I’m wrong, that you prefer to be with men?”

“I tend towards men, yes,” says Timothée lightly, “although women are not without their charms. And you?” 

“I usually prefer women, actually,” says Armie, “but when I’ve been attracted to men in the past, those attractions have been some of the most intense of my life, so I really couldn’t say for sure. It seems to be very circumstantial.”

“And what about me?” Timothée’s breath is cool on Armie’s skin. “Is it intense with me?” 

“It’s earthshattering with you,” replies Armie, bluntly. “But I think you already know that.”

Timothée stares down at him from those sexual lidded eyes, brings Armie’s hands to his waist, and without half a thought Armie pulls his shirt over his crowfeather head, expels it to the floor. His hands are so huge that he can touch the waistband of Timothée’s jeans with the bottom of his palm at the same time the tip of his middle finger presses his upper abdomen, and Timothée thrills for it, how large he is, the power of him. He rocks his hips down against Armie’s cock so the golden man groans and twists beneath him and then he whispers in Armie’s ear:

“You have no idea how earthshattering it can be with me.”

Armie sits up like he’s been shocked through with voltage, scrambles to the edge of the bed with Timothée _mmm_ ing swathed around him, stands up and walks them over to the door. He presses Timothée barebacked against the bumpy surface, kisses deep into his mouth. 

“I have this strange feeling that you’re going to show me, vamp.”

“Hunter, I’ll show you a hundred different galaxies, if you let me,” breathes Timothée, all luscious mouth and moony eyes, and Armie wants to pound him through the floor, silent watchers be damned. He says low,

“What if I fucked you against a wall of bones? Would that bother you?”

Timothée’s eyes flash pitch. “Are you proposing that we try?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Armie hitches Timothée further up on his hips, thrills for the way the dark one secures those lissome thighs around Armie’s tapered waist. “I like hypotheticals, Timothée; I like to know my options. Surely you’ve noticed this about me by now.”

“It might scare you to know how much I’ve noticed about you by now,” says Timothée, voice a wreck, and Armie slides his tongue up under Timothée’s top lip again, searches out his fangs, long and sword-sharp. Poised for a feed.

“Try me.”

Timothée chuckles.

“Your most prominent vein is on the left side of your neck. You have one on your inner right thigh, too, but the one I’d choose is on your throat, because I want to be able to hear that sharp gasp in my ear when I take from you for the first time. You have another scar on your lower right abdomen, but it’s too surgical to be the product of an attack, so I’d guess that you had your appendix out a few years ago. You were hesitant to let me speak with you because of what I am, but you’re contrary, because you’re also obsessed with the things that _make_ me what I am. Like my fangs, and how they extend when I’m aroused.” Timothée is hypnotic, silvertongued, Armie can’t look away. “Shall I go on?” 

“By all means,” says Armie, entertained; he’d done the same analytical thing when he and Timothée had first spoken at the bar, and he respects people who can pinpoint him simply because he’s very aware of the fact that he’s tremendously difficult _to_ pinpoint.

“I think as much as you might fight yourself on it,” says Timothée, with no shortage of confidence, “you want to know what it would be like. I know you’re curious about the bond feed. Maybe it’s just me getting my hopes up, but I think that curiosity will end up getting the better of you. Armie.”

Armie is just about to respond, some coy, flirtatious parry that he knows will bring delight to Timothée’s eyes, when the vampire pauses, eyes rounding, head turned to the side as though caught by some unheard sound. Hackles raised, goosebumps appearing again on his moonlight skin, alert for something that Armie with his limited human senses cannot detect. Armie mouths,

“What is it?” 

And Timothée’s lips form the shape of _shhhhhhh_ and Armie can feel how tense he has gone in his arms. Timothée jumps down, lands noiselessly like a stalking jungle cat on the cold stone floor, and as he does Armie with that preternatural ability to detect peril can feel the air begin to transform slowly around them, insidious, unwelcome. _Danger._

There is something standing on the other side of the door, and it radiates malevolence. _  
_

They both stand pressed against the bone-inlaid entranceway, heads cocked, eyes wide, ears pricked. Blue veins stand out pulsing against Timothée’s ice-colored skin; every inch of him is on full alert, and even as Armie braces himself for whatever horrible thing seems bound to happen next he wonders what limitless supernatural strength looks like on this ethereal fae-like creature. His beauty is terrifying in itself; what must ruthless combat look like upon that faultless countenance?

On the opposite side of the door, the presence heaves, writhes, undulates. Armie strains and strains to hear something, anything, but there is nothing, only silence ornamented with that thick sense of hazard, so clear and sharp it’s like he can taste it in the air. Timothée’s gaze rises to meet Armie’s and his eyes are – not fearful, exactly, but not secure, and Armie is dismayed for it. If Timothée, this powerful, centuries-old creature, is apprehensive about whatever it is that is happening, then they’re nothing if not fucked.

They wait, stationary, overwrought, thrumming on the inside from surging adrenaline. Armie is just about to go insane from lack of fruition when an alarmed voice – female, Julianna’s, he thinks – rings out from somewhere down the hallway, and abruptly the heavy aura vanishes. Timothée straightens, eyes clearing, mouth set, and exhales.

“What in the _fuck_ ,” says Armie, warring with himself for control of his voice, “was that?” 

“I have no idea,” says Timothée grimly, “but it wasn’t anything good.”

He unlatches the door, pokes his dark head out into the skeletal candlelit hallway, searches. Almost immediately footsteps rush up from the left and Julianna appears, several hairs out of place, eyes saucered in her phantom-hued face.

“Mr. Chalamet, Mr. Hammer,” she says, and her voice is shaken. “You both are all right?”

“We’re fine,” says Armie. “Did you feel that – whatever it was?”

“Felt it,” says Julianna, “and saw it. There was something standing outside your doorway – a woman, I think, but – not a woman.”

She’s flushed and frenetic and Timothée lays an automatic hand on her shoulder; immediately, the fear in her face lessens, her breath calming as she gathers herself. Armie is impressed: Timothée is magicking her, using that matchless vampire charm not to seduce, but to appease.

“It’s all right, Julianna,” he says, and his voice is a song. “Nothing to fear, it’s gone now. Would you like to come sit?”

He leads her gently inside the room, guides her over to the bed, perches her at the end of the mattress. Normally this would cause Armie to be a combination of dismay, horror, amusement: she’s sitting smack in the middle of the area where their earlier shenanigans took place, but there is no space inside of him to worry about that now. Now, he is all leftover fight-or-flight, apprehension, concern; now, he is all hunter.

“This woman,” he says slowly, retrieving his drink from the bedside table and handing it to Julianna; she accepts it with thanks in her eyes and takes a slow sip. “What did she look like?” 

“I – I really couldn’t say, sir,” says Julianna, shaking her head. “As you know, it’s quite dark in the hallway, and I wasn’t near enough to her to make out any distinguishing details. She was wearing a dark cloak, so at first I thought she was one of ours, you know, a hostess…”

She tapers off, takes another drink for mettle.

“But she wasn’t. There was something – wrong about her. When I noticed I shouted out right away and then she was just, I don’t know, _gone_. I barely saw her move, but one moment she was in front of your door, and the next, she was not. She didn’t even turn to look at me when I yelled.”

Armie and Timothée look at each other, baffled. Timothée says,

“What was she doing?”

“Nothing,” says Julianna. “Truly, nothing. Just standing there. But I could feel her from all the way down the hallway. I’m used to the supernatural world; it is part of my job to rub elbows with species of all kinds, but the aura I sensed from her – she was not right. There is no other way to describe it. She felt quite evil.” 

“Yeah,” says Armie heavily, as he retrieves his shirt and yanks it back over his head, “she did to us, too.”

“Are there other feeder rooms near ours?” Timothée is miles away, brain whirring. “Any other door she was standing in front of?”

“If she was, I do not know, sir. I am sorry,” says Julianna. Her hands have stopped quivering from the combined elixir of Timothée’s influence and Armie’s whiskey but her face is still drawn, apprehensive. “Yours is the only room on this side of the hallway in this particular section of the catacombs.”

“Thank you, Julianna,” says Armie kindly. He hands Timothée his shirt and the dark one pulls it on effortlessly, eyes still planets away, solving for _x_. “Are you all right?” 

“I’m fine, Mr. Hammer,” says Julianna, offering an unconvincing smile. “But if I may say, I think it best if the two of you return to the party for the rest of the evening. Security down here is notorious for its excellence, but as you can see by our unwanted guest, even the best systems can sometimes be bypassed. I think it safer for you in the presence of many others, rather than alone, at least for the time being.”

“I agree,” says Timothée, and Armie nods. “We appreciate your vigilance, Julianna, you’ve been very helpful.”

He’s an impeccable gentleman, cordial, and Armie hears easily in his voice how he was trained, at a boarding school where prim schoolmarms rapped on naughty boys’ knuckles for insolence, at a pretentious university chock full of men in bowler hats. It’s endearing and it’s not the time but he can’t help the fond that crosses his face and Timothée catches it, grins despite himself, arches a brow. _What_? He is asking, but Armie can’t answer.

“Of course, Mr. Chalamet,” says Julianna, and she is all dignity now, back to her composed hostess self. “I must apologize for the interruption. I assure you both that we will be investigating the presence of our unwanted guest immediately. In the meantime, was everything in the room to your satisfaction?”

“It was perfect, Julianna, thank you,” says Armie, and Timothée nods his agreement.

“Excellent. Mr. Hammer, shall I have some food brought to the bar for you? I know you didn’t get a chance to eat.”

Armie had forgotten about the subdued growl in his stomach, but as soon as she mentions sustenance his hunger seems to multiply tenfold, a bothersome need that clamors to be fulfilled instantly. “Yes, actually, that would be amazing. I don’t suppose you have cheese fries?”

“No. But we have bacon _ranch_ cheese fries,” says Julianna with some satisfaction, and Armie grins.

“Speaking my language.”

*

Julianna escorts them back to the party, promises Armie that his fries will be delivered to the bar as soon as possible, and leaves them with the assurance that yes, thank you, she’s quite all right on her own.

“I have protection,” she says, withdrawing an intricate silver amulet from the front folds of her robes. “I am descended from the Valais witches. I have my own form of magic.”

And with a clever arched-brow smirk, she turns on her heel and evaporates once more down the gruesome candlelit hallway.

As soon as she’s gone Armie shuts the door, leans against it, tosses Timothée a look.

“You can’t tell me that’s not terrifying.”

Timothée is endlessly amused by him. “I have to say I’ve seen worse.” He reaches into the pocket of his blazer, withdraws a clove cigarette and a lighter, although Armie knows he can spark a flame between his fingertips if he so chooses. “Bacon cheese fries, hunter? And you have abs like that?”

Armie barks out a laugh, surprised. “Give me a break. I can’t eat salmon and vegetables _all_ the time.”

Timothée grins, lights his cigarette, draws a massive drag. Blows smoke to the side, shakes coal-black desultory curls out of his eyes. “Let’s go to the bar. You can eat, and we can talk about what the fuck just happened." 

Armie shakes his sunshine head, looks around them to ensure there are no unwanted eyes observing what they shouldn’t, runs a surreptitious hand up through Timothée’s hair. “Again with the modernisms.”

Timothée knows what Armie means: that he’s been picking up on how easily Timothée can switch between formal and informal language as needed. “Knowing your audience is crucial. Come on, _chausseur_.”

The flickery lighting of the tomb – now rocking and heaving with masses of murmuring beings – is the exact same as the remainder of the Catacombs, but the din of the music is like an alarm bell; Armie had gotten used to the pleasant silence of their little sanctuary. Amongst this throng, they are simply another hunter, another vampire, and there is nothing significant about either of them but their beauty to attract attention. Luckily, beauty is not a major draw for this caliber of crowd, and they wend their sinuous way through the bodies back to the bar, which is considerably more crowded than it had been when they left it, without being stopped. The current barkeep is quite different from the surly man who had been tending earlier; now they are faced with a handsome woman in her mid-thirties whose demeanor screams assurance, Hades himself couldn’t rattle her. The alcohol has long since worn off but Armie is reluctant to ingest more knowing that that _thing_ might still be haunting the halls. 

“Get another, if you wish,” says Timothée as though he’s read Armie’s mind – and, Armie reasons, he likely has. “Julianna was right, we’re safe in the tomb. Whatever that was knows it isn’t supposed to be here, and it isn’t powerful enough on its own to wreak havoc in a room full of creatures such as ourselves.”

“I will if you will,” says Armie, and Timothée nods, puffs smoke rings out through his pretty mouth. When they’ve both got fresh drinks set out before them Timothée rakes long skeletal fingers back through his mess of waves, sighs.

“I don’t know what it was for sure,” he says, musing, “but I’ve had some time to think about it, and it felt like one of mine.”

“She,” says Armie, “But _not_ she, according to Juliana. I don’t know what it was either, but it felt angry.”

Timothée nods, pulls ponderously at his drink. “Have you made anyone mad recently?”

“Oh, plenty of people, I’m sure,” says Armie without a lick of shame, “It’s part of the job. But I’m discreet, and I’m good at covering my tracks, and I don’t think I’ve done anything so heinous lately as to warrant that kind of heavy emotion.”

“Lately?”

Armie winks. “We all have our deep dark shit.”

Timothée raises his glass. “ _Santé_.”

“Cheers.” They clink the rims of their cups, drink deep. “What about you? Anyone after you?”

“Besides you, you mean?” It’s Timothée’s turn to wink. “Not that I can think of. I’m usually decent at keeping to myself. But you never know when you might offend someone unintentionally, I suppose, or who might think to come back for revenge. In my day I’ve turned a few vampires who did not love the thought of immortality, or they didn’t when they were new to the species, so I suppose those are possible options. But it’s my experience that the idea of eternal life grows on most vampires after a few decades of getting used to things.”

“I would imagine so,” says Armie, bridging a thick eyebrow. “I would think it would be advantageous in many ways. But all this to say – there’s no reason in the world why anything with that level of incredible malice should have chosen to hang out in the hallway outside of our door while I was trying to fuck you against it.” 

Despite everything that’s happened, despite the volatility of the evening’s mood, Timothée’s fangs extend for that.

“No. Nothing obvious comes to mind.”

“Well since that’s the case,” says Armie, before the bartender temporarily interrupts by placing a gigantic plate of bacon cheese fries on the counter before him. “Holy shit, God is real.”

Timothée chokes on his blood cocktail. “Thought you didn’t believe in God.”

“Didn’t say that. I said I believe in what I know, and I know that this looks a whole lot like God if it was a food.” Armie drops a fry dripping with ranch into his mouth, grins. “Pity you can’t enjoy this with me, vamp, it’s unreal.”

“It’s enjoyable enough just to watch you,” says Timothée, amused to no end by him, his lack of façade. “You were saying?”

“I was going to say,” says Armie casually, “since we don’t know which one of us that thing is after, that we should probably stick together for a few days. You know, to see if it comes back.”

The smile that unfurls slow across Timothée’s lovely marble-carved face is catastrophic in its splendor.

“You think so, do you.”

Armie shrugs, but his heart clouts his ribcage for the pleasure in Timothée’s eyes. “Yeah, I do. We’d be strong as hell if we combined forces.”

“It just so happens,” says Timothée, watching him. “that I agree with you, hunter. We _would_ be strong as hell together. But I can’t lie and pretend that my intentions are entirely noble.”

“Good,” says Armie, “Because mine aren’t either. My flat doesn’t have any walls made of bone, but it does have walls, and a bed, and a really fluffy carpet that would be easy on your knees.”

Timothée leans forward, searches him, finds all manner of sincerity there.

“I want to kiss you, hunter,” he says. “Here, now. Will you let me?”

“I will,” says Armie, so Timothée curls his fingers around the scruff of Armie’s neck, pulls him in, presses their lips openly together, and it is like this that they lose themselves, surrounded by dark and blood and all manner of supernatural things. Not a care in the world in that moment but for each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I am literally the worst at updating this but I had a LOT of fun with this chapter and I hope you guys like it. It went in a different direction than I expected but holy shit we have a plot = I have an outline = we are GOING SOMEWHERE, people. Also this was originally going to be super dark and it kind of still is/will be but it's also kind of crack, too? Anyway. Thanks for being patient, you guys, you mean the world to me <3

**Author's Note:**

> [The Airbnb in the Catacombs is a real thing](https://inhabitat.com/spend-halloween-night-with-6-million-parisian-skeletons-in-worlds-creepiest-airbnb/airbnb-paris-catacombs-halloween/). Apparently a contest was held in 2015, with the winners being allowed to spend Halloween night in a creepy underground room encased in bones. I haven't checked to ensure that they made it out alive ;)
> 
> I took liberties with the size of the place, as it needed to be a bit larger to hold a good party.


End file.
